Out Think, Out Smart, Out Gas Part 1
by Resurgent-class
Summary: Season 1 Story 8.1 Takes place in Season 1, between episodes #8 The Day Smart Turned Chicken and #9 Satan Place. Armed with a stolen tranquilizer gas, [Read Radio KAOS for background if you like], KAOS masterminds a string of daring robberies with 86 and 99 hot on their tails—if Max can quit gawking at the Swedish model and do his job that is! [Really sorry for the 5 parts!]
1. Chapter 1

**Out Think, Out Smart, Out Gas**

 **Part 1**

 **A Get Smart Fan Fiction**

 **By** **Resurgent** **-class**

 **Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN ANY GET SMART ORIGINAL SERIES CHARACTERS**

 **CHAPTER 1**

 **The Hotel Cramley**

 **Presents**

 **The Diamond District & Jewelers' Row**

 **Diamond Trade Fair 1965**

The grand banner 30 ft in length by 10 ft made of plush black velvet bearing it's elegant cursive text, suspended between two sturdy iron poles above the front entrance awning of it's host premises, completely eclipsed the latter's name on said awning. Even the host's name on the awning failed to draw attention away from the true source of the grandeur and prestige in this situation. And well it should for while the hotel had its name and the word ' _presents_ ' displayed in reasonably eye-catching bright blue velvet against the black background to match it's counterpart on the awning, the rest of the words were spelt out in an array of polished multi-colored paragons, each massing at 100 to 150 carats, reflecting the sun's rays in a spectrum of dazzling colors.

Which explained the 4 burly uniformed private security guards stationed at the front entrance. Their uniforms were light blue topped by a darker blue cropped jacket. Dark blue peaked caps bearing their company emblem sat atop their crew-cuts and above their glittering watchful eyes in the shades of their headgear. 6 inch barreled, .38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson Model 27 revolvers rested in holsters on their utility belts at their hips while their hands held American-180 loaded with 177 round detachable pan magazines.

Inside the lobby at least 10 more such guards were arrayed at the various entrances, watching the movements of every guest and staff that moved from front desk to sitting area to elevators to the various entrances. But most of all, they watched the more exclusive guests in suits and ties and formal dresses worth 3 times more than their whole month's salaries, moving towards the two grand red carpeted stair cases at the east and west ends of the lobby curving up to the second floor to the objective of their security.

Both staircases led to a foyer on the second floor, each one depositing visitors just meters from one of the two doors of the hotel's massive ballroom, devoted to the diamond trade fair. A long table had been set up before each entrance manned by the fair's organizing committee staffs. The invited participants dressed in their thousand dollar suits and dresses were welcomed and registered before security guards dressed in suit and ties for this more delicate purpose, ran hand-held metal detectors over them, tuned only to detect metals heavy enough to be firearms. All passed without incident however.

Inside, the ballroom had been converted for the purposes of the diamond fair. Head-high black partitions formed exhibition booths for the participating retailers from the two largest diamond districts in America with about 80 booths in total. Activity buzzed both inside the ballroom and outside at the foyer. On the inside, Buyers milled about the hundreds of display cases located within the booths, inspecting the polished and unpolished loose diamonds, many using monocular, handheld loupes to confirm the quality of the stones. At least 10 armed guards were arrayed around the room in each ballroom augmented by more guards dispersed among the crowds, identifiable in their cheaper, off the rack suit and ties. Adding to the watchful eyes of the guards in both ballrooms were at least a dozen CCTV cameras monitoring both areas, the black and white images at almost all angles appearing on over a dozen screens in the security control room. Outside on the foyer, buyers also gathered in groups over drinks talking and negotiating attended to by serving staff.

Upholding a relaxing, elegant atmosphere, formally dressed serving staff, in black and white; waiters in tailcoat suits black suits and bow ties and their female counterparts in skirt suits with cropped jackets and knee length skirts moved constantly among the booths and buyers both in the ballroom and outside on the foyer serving flutes of sparkling champagne while audible but soothing classical music permeated the fair, courtesy of a small live orchestra in a corner in each of the ballrooms complete with a conductor.

"I'd like to look at the unpolished ones as well…seventy carats you say?" a white haired buyer in a light gray silk suit asked at a booth as he held a tray of 5 stones, inspecting them with his handheld loupe held at this right eye.

"Eighty carats minimum sir." The pretty red haired jeweler assured sliding open the glass of the display case with her blue satin gloved hands.

"Oui…oui…" A gray haired man in a dark blue suit declared as he examined a cluster of blue, red and white paragons on a tray through his monocular. "Le plus beau! I will take two hundred of zeese."

"Shipped as usual to your chain in Paris Mr Dupérey?" the retailer from New York asked as he prepared the forms.

A lady's gleaming low heeled black pumps stepped effortlessly from one red carpeted tread to the other on the east staircase until she arrived at the foyer and moved through the crowd of the industry elites milling about there. She moved without calling any untoward attention to herself, towards the east door of the ballroom. This was credited to her unobtrusive manner and skillful yet effortless maneuvering among the crowd and to some degree her appearance; a black double breasted coat dress shrouded her 5 ft 8.5 inch frame from broad shoulders to knees, form fitting all the way but broadening as the garment passed her hips to enable her long steely black stockinged legs to move without hindrance.

Her low heeled pumps stepped silently over the plush carpet until she arrived at the entrance to the second ballroom where she graciously stood still with her arms at her sides for the security personnel to run their metal detectors over her lean curves and even the large simple black and silver clutch she held in her black kid gloved hands. Despite their formal and stiff appearance, the lady noted they took a bit longer than needed to move the device over her waist and hips which she did not spare any emotion for. The security personnel in the suit and tie nodded formally and waved her through upon finishing. The lady nodded in gratitude smiling softly though she doubt he could see it. She melted effortlessly into the crowd circumventing the clusters of chatting buyers while her black kid leather gloved hands held a simple black and silver clutch.

"Yes! Yes! A fine collection! As good as any I've seen from India to Antwerp!" a portly man with a bushy white mustache in a tweed suit remarked to his group as he sipped a flute of champagne. "I have just purchased four hundred stones for my shops in London."

At a long table against the west wall of the ballroom where trays of champagne flutes, filled and empty were laid out, right behind 5 watchful uniformed guards, a passing male figure surreptitiously attached a small radio transceiver with a short antenna under one end of the table. At the other end of the table at the northwestern corner of the room where another 5 guards watched over the crowd, a female figure moved behind them placing another similar device under the table.

"Do visit our shops in Copenhagen, Sir Giles." A woman in his cluster, dressed in dark green with a matching pill box hat, light netted veil extending down over her face, suggested. "Our chain is expanding and we would love for you to see them."

At the eastern wall of the ballroom where similar refreshment table was positioned, the same male and female figures swept by unnoticed behind the backs of several armed guards completely focused on the booths where the diamonds were. Two more radio transceivers were placed by the man and woman underneath the long table.

"I'd be delighted!" Sir Giles exclaimed raising his flute to clink the ladies as the figure in black whispered past them without turning a single head.

"…alright, these two hundred stones must reach Ramat Gan by the fifteenth—" The slightly hunched tall bald man with the goatee in a dark suit stated as he signed the purchase papers. "—and the one hundred and sixty paragons in one hundred and thirty carats each by the twenty-fourth…no the twentieth of the following month."

"No problem Mister Ravid." Assured the young lady from Philadelphia. "Would you consider a further purchase of a hundred paragons? These polished ones just arrived from our mines in Arkansas are five hundred carats minimum, very popular at this time and we'll provide free shipping."

As the lady glided past Ravid's back, a waitress just an inch or two shorter than her with tawny hair pulled neatly back into a formal bun approached her smiling with a tray of champagne. The lady nodded, her right gloved hand picking a flute while her left hand held her clutch down at her side. At the same time, a tall waiter with blond hair crafted in an Ivy League cut walked pass behind her with a tray and as he did, he slipped an identical clutch into the lady's gloved hand while taking the original one.

"...can you guarantee shipment to Geneva vithin three veeks for three hundred stones?—" asked a golden blonde lady in her mid-thirties dressed in a shimmering black dress, white coat with fur lapels and a matching semicircular halo hat.

"—owver vetail chain is having a grand opening for four more shops." The buyer continued, examining a cluster of red stones on a velvet display tray with her monocular without difficulty despite the net of her veil extending down from her hat over her face.

"We can guarantee delivery in one and a half weeks Madam." The blond haired young man from the New York diamond district assured.

As the white haired buyer walked away tucking his receipt into his suit jacket, hurrying to another booth, Natalie Walmire happily closed the sales file and breathed a sigh of relief.

"I hope the boys in purchasing back in Philadelphia are stocked up cause this'll guarantee us bonuses for the next TWO years!" Regis her fellow jeweler declared from the back of their booth where he sat at a small table cataloging their orders and sales.

"That'll teach those stiffs in the committee da stick us in a booth all the way back here." Natalie smirked, tossing her long red hair back with her satin gloved hands.

"Let those N-Y diamond district snobs have their next-to-the-door booth space." Regis scoffed with a toss of his head and an exaggerated grimace causing his dark brown wavy hair to bounce. "We can out-commission, out-sell them any place any wall!"

Natalie laughed looking about her for approaching customers but seeing none coming near turned back to her colleague.

"So what do you say—" she suggested. "—if I manage da offload another three hundred stones before lunch, drinks and dinner on you."

"You're on!" Regis smiled with a lifted eyebrow as he gestured at her with a file which he put away. "Heck, with the sales we've made, I'll take you dancing too."

"Reg—" Natalie said with a tilt of her head as she pulled off the satin glove of her right hand and held it up, dorsal side facing the young man, displaying her own diamond. "—just the drink and dinner."

"Just the DANCE!" Regis returned squinting at her and shaking his head. "Do you have a different DICTIONARY from the rest of us when it comes to that word?!"

Natalie gave her angelic smirk again saying "From what Sadie told me, YOUR dictionary needs a lot of…"

"May I see these polished paragons in four hundred carats?"

The female voice cut Natalie off, spinning her back to her counter, slightly startled. She was certain there were no buyers near their stall nor could anyone approach them without her noticing in her peripheral vision. Upon facing the speaker, Natalie had to call upon the rest of her years of honed salesmanship to maintain her perfect smile and keep her heart from jumping.

There was nothing unusual about the woman's black formal coat dress or the black leather kid gloves she wore nor the matching draped turban atop her head. Many of the female buyers wore similar millinery more stylish and brightly colored then this lady's simple black satin. The cloth was wrapped neatly around her head completely obscuring her hair and her forehead.

It was her veil that stood out. Instead of a simple net reaching just to the chin like the other women, hers' was a long, broad piece of sheer black silk, wrapped round her head with the top edge above her eyebrows, held against the draped turban at the back of her head and likely at the right temple of the headgear by unseen pins. As a result, the veil fell like a shimmering curtain of midnight, down over the back of her neck and broad shoulders and down to her chest just above the prominent curves of her black shrouded breasts, completely hiding her face.

Natalie had to blink a few times before answering as she pulled her satin glove back on, very certain she'd have screamed and fainted by now if this encounter was in a dark alley.

"Certainly, just a moment."

As she slid open the display case and brought out the tray, she noticed that the black veil was not exactly entirely opaque which explained how the lady could still see where she was going. Placing the tray of diamonds down on top of the display case, Natalie looked up at the buyer and realized if she looked hard, she could just make out the contours of the woman's face within; sculpted cheekbones tapering down to a prominent chin and elegantly square jaw and finely curved almost elfin like ears. But beyond these outlines, the rest was a featureless black void in the depths of the veil.

"From the deposits in Panna." The lady in black's strong, moderated, alto voice stated rather then asked as her gloved index and thumb picked up a clear and brilliant paragon from the other multi-colored ones.

"That's right." Natalie confirmed. "We offer all four classifications here. Our greatest orders have been the sepia colored Bunsputs thus far. The one you're holding is…"

"Motichul-class." The lady finished as she held it before her veil, her strong, slightly deep voice seeming to permeate the space around them. "Clear, brilliant—white—masterful."

Natalie sighed internally at the melodrama some buyers could attach to their purchases, but felt pleased that he smile did not falter at all as she thought.

 _Whatever, long as you buy it._

"Isn't it?" Natalie fake agreed. "When combined with emeralds and rubies, it helps to contrast and highlight the other stones. One of our buyers in Belgium crafted a necklace with five of these clear paragons and it sold for close to half a million dollars just last year."

"Not what I was referring to—" The lady states flatly, unseen eyes still locked on the glittering stone in her gloved fingers through her veil. "—but yes, their esthetic appeal and financial worth are acceptable."

Natalie maintained her unwavering smile while thinking _Yes, I know, you're rich but enough with the cryptic lady, you gonna buy it or not?_ But saying "An excellent eye ma'am. We have two hundred of those in stock at the moment but if you require a larger quantity, further arrangements can be made, tailored for your convenience."

"These will do." The black veiled lady declared placing down the clear stone she was inspecting back on the padded display tray.

"Wonderful!" Natalie nodded reaching for the order forms. _Took you long enough!_ "If you can let me know the quantity…"

"Please place these five Motichul in a separate bag for me." The lady pointed her gloved index finger at the stone she had just inspected. "I will be taking all of them. Have them ready, my people will be by in a little while to finish the transaction."

Before Natalie could even come up with another sarcastic thought, the lady was walking away.

"But…wait, how...Ma'am! Could I have your name or the company you're…How will I know which..."

"You won't be able to miss them." The lady said without turning, just barely within audible range as her black pumps and rapidly striding powerful legs carried her away and seemingly without shouldering or twisting her posture, melted away into the crowds and was gone.

Natalie, eyes wide with contempt and hand gesturing in the direction the lady had walked, turned to Regis.

"Long as they roll out the cash and checks, we have da' put up with the attitude." Regis sighed, shrugging and shaking his head.

The tawny haired waitress and the blond waiter both slipped quickly through a door into the large kitchen of the ballroom. They moved swiftly past the numerous staff inside who were busy pouring champagne and opening new bottles to keep the festivities going. As they walked, they each smoothly swept up a tray and added to them 2-3 glasses of ice water each from dozens of glasses that laid ready on a kitchen counter, all without breaking their stride or even pulling their eyes from their path. Both reached the end of the kitchen and slipped out an exit into a corridor which led them to an employee elevator.

The red carpeted eastern staircase swept up and past the black veiled view of the lady as she descended it, hidden eyes checking off each individual in the lobby.

At an employee only section of the ground floor, the staff elevator dinged and the doors slid apart to reveal the light blond haired waiter and the tawny haired waitress with their trays of ice water. Both exited the elevator striding smoothly down a corridor. The man adjusted his uniform bow tie and spoke into a hidden microphone in it pressed to his throat.

"Blindside to S-S-Nineteen und Collector. Ve are on zhe ground floor, een pozition een five seconds."

The blond waiter's voice issued over an earpiece in the black veiled lady's hidden ear. Her steel edged alto voice was picked up by a geranium crystal on a choker around her throat with a hidden microphone inside.

"S-S-Nineteen approachink zer main entrance. Collector, move eento pozition now."

A third voice, muffled and gruff came over both the waiter's bow tie and the black veiled lady's ear piece.

"Ja S-S-Nineteen."

SS-19 reached the front entrance of the hotel and continued out under the arched awning which extended from above the entrance to the edge of the pavement. The four guards remained on watch, two on either side of the awning. The Cramley's doorman in his long festive gold buttoned, maroon coat with matching peaked cap looked up from his chat with the guard on the left closer to the awning as the black shrouded feminine form whispered past.

SS-19 stopped at the edge of the pavement under the awning bearing the Cramley's name. As she cradled her clutch in the crook of her left arm under the graceful curves of her breasts, the doorman hurried up to her.

"Cab for you ma'am?"

SS-19 gave a barely perceptible tilt of her head veiled head as she replied.

"No need. I am waiting for someone."

"Of course ma'am." The doorman smiled tipping his peaked cap slightly and SS-19 nodded in thanks.

The doorman retreated a few steps standing under the awning awaiting likely to open the door of what would be likely some luxury vehicle that would be arriving for the lady.

About 200 yards up the street to the right, two Ford Econoline cargo vans', a gray one followed by a blue one, appeared from a side street and drove down the street towards the entrance of the hotel.

Sighting the vans in her peripheral vision despite the veil, SS-19 spoke into her choker communicator without moving her head.

"Blindside move."

The waiter and the waitress waiting at the end of a corridor junction, turned swiftly and walked down the corridor to the left.

"Any-ONE of those stones are equal to our pay checks combined for three months!" Hank Granger remarked from where he sagged in his comfortable chair in the security control room.

The northern wall of the security control room before him were arrayed with a dozen screens relaying the black and white images of the ballroom as well as other parts of the hotel.

"I need da eat for three months." Grimaced Martin Payne his portly fellow guard in the seat next to him.

"That's what I keep telling my wife every time she walks by one of them stores." added 55 year old George Malconi from the east wall of the room where he was checking the racks of video recorders for every CCTV in the hotel. "I told her 'honey, you want three meals a day on the table for us and the kids or you wan us da starve and stare at some piece of shiny rock round your thick NECK for ninety days!"

Hank and Martin laughed from the CCTV monitor screens along with the last two guards in the room, passing the time over a poker game at a table at the western wall.

One of the poker playing guards pointed to a monitor screen showing a CCTV feed of a corridor along which walked a waiter with light blond hair and waitress with her tawny hair pulled back in a bun each conveying a silver tray of ice water.

"Refreshments here."

A moment later one of the serving staff knocked on the door of the security room at the center of the southern wall.

The sound of the knock filtered over SS-19's earpiece as she gauged the distance of the rapidly approaching Ford cargo vans. The waitress's voice floated into her ear next.

" _Take a break boys! Management don't want you guys getting dehydrated!_ "

Hank heaved his overweight frame out of his swivel chair and walked up to the door calling at it.

"If it's Gin and Johnny Walkers' you've got on those trays, I can guarantee that won't be a problem!"

SS-19's right gloved hand reached into her clutch and took hold of a small remote control with a short rubber antenna. The 2 full sized cargo vans pulled up smoothly at the pavement with about 3 ft of gap between their front and rear bumpers which aligned perfectly with SS-19 right where she stood.

" _Sorry, can't have you boys inebriated with millions of dollars of diamonds out there_!" the tawny haired waitress laugh issued over SS-19's earpiece.

"Hey! You guys can't park here!" one of the armed guards on her left called to the lead van as he walked up to the vehicle along with the corresponding guard on the right of the awning who said the same thing to the second van's driver.

Hank turned the locks on the door and pulled open the heavy door to the security control room revealing the smiling serving staff. He smiled at the twinkly emerald eyed, tawny haired girl as she smiled happily with a tilt of her head, offering the tray.

"Here you—" her voice issued over SS-19's earpiece. "— _go boys! Drink up!"_

As the 2 burly security guards to either side of her argued with the drivers of the vans and the remaining 2 guards further back tightened their grip on their American-180 submachine guns, SS-19's gloved thumb pushed a button on the remote inside her bag.

Inside the ballroom, the hidden radio transceivers under the tables on either side of the ballroom came to life with a blue light coming on and issuing soft beeps. On all the CCTVs in the ballroom and outside at the foyer, their red indicator lights confirming their active status started blinking rapidly before disappearing entirely.

"Guys! The feeds!" Martin yelled out, his portly frame jolting up straight in his chair as the images on half a dozen monitors disappeared replaced by white hash and static.

"Relax it's just a glitch, happens all the time." George said still marking off his checks on his clipboard at the recorders.

"It's only the feeds for the diamond fair!" Martin insisted grabbing for the phones.

All the guards now turned towards the northern wall including Hank who spun away from the waiters only to convulse as a jet of blood fountained out from his chest following a sharp _clack_ sound. Before Hank's lifeless form even touched the floor, the waiter and waitress moved into the security room, their free hands appearing from under their trays with a suppressor attached Walther P1 and Browning Hi Power respectively, the latter already smoking. Only the clacking of the P1's slide as it slammed back and forth with every shot is heard as the blond waiter squeezed the trigger repeatedly with the suppressor dampening it's shockwave but not it's violent effects as both the poker playing guards convulsed in mid stride towards the monitor screens as FMJ 9mm Parabellum hollow points slammed into their upper bodies while Martin arched back in death pains, phone dropping from his hand as 2 hollow points from the tawny haired waitress's Hi Power shattered his spine.

George at the video recorder rack dropped his clipboard, right hand pulling his S&W Model 27 out of the holster at his utility belt. The waitress swung her weapon towards him and the Hi Power's slide clacked twice. George slammed back into the video recorder rack with a loud clatter as the waitress's hollow points punched through his heart and lung, exit wounds in his back spraying the machines with blood just before he slid in a lifeless heap to the floor.

"Move your vehicles round THAT corner!" the guard yelled at the driver of the lead van while pointing down the street to the junction. "The loading docks are round the back!"

"Look pal my slip says front entrance of Hotel Cramley!" the driver, a bald man with a ringlet of dark blond hair around his head insisted pointing to said slip.

"Not here!" exclaimed the other guard at the sidewalk to the driver in the second van while gesticulating just as angrily down the road. "THAT WAY!"

However, the second van's driver, a lanky but gaunt man with hollow cheeks and bulging eyes, tilted his head of whispy, silver hair while shrugging and replied helplessly in a low voice that sounded like the moaning of the wind.

"Desculpe senhor. Não fale inglês!"

SS-19 stood like a black statue where she was as her right gloved hand emerged from her clutch with a polished Luger P08, it's 100 mm barrel almost entirely shrouded in a 110 mm suppressor, pointing past her left arm.

"I don't care what your slip says!" the guard yelled at the lead van's driver. "Get your damn van…"

The guard was cut off as he shook violently and a small fountain of blood exploded from his rib cage under his left arm as the 9mm Parabellum round exited, having smashed in from the opposite side. Before his body struck the ground or the other two guards further back could react, SS-19 spun effortlessly on her pumps to face the red carpeted entrance of the hotel again such that her suppressed Luger P08 now pointed to the other guard which had been on her right, still arguing with the second van as he had not even noticed his colleague fall. SS-19's gloved index finger squeezed the trigger and the toggle arm of the Luger clicked. As the second guard convulsed in the same fate as his colleague, the other two guards whipped up their American-180 submachine guns but SS-19's arm moved swinging flawlessly from left to right firing twice. The 3rd and 4th guards wheeled back at almost the same time, 9mm rounds smashing their hearts as the side doors of the vans slid open.

The door man took a second to realize what was happening before turning and dashing for the door. Before he took 3 steps, a 9mm Parabellum round exploded out the hollow of his left shoulder, red droplets raining down on the pavement.

Even as the doorman fell forward, men in white jumped out from the side door of the vans, 8 from each vehicle and charged past SS-19 on either side, towards the entrance as she remained where she stood, dropping her clutch and pressing the clip release on her Luger P08. Before the falling clip reached the pavement, her left gloved hand was shoving in a new magazine while the drivers of the vans stood on either side of the awning each levelling a 6 inch barrel S&W Model 10 revolver with suppressors up at the diamond spelt banner over the awning. Two quick shots from each of them severed the bindings of the banner and it floated down, landing across the awning and the drivers yanked the banner down and swiftly rolled it up.

The 2 columns of men charging at the entrance were dressed in fully encapsulating white jumpsuits with black anti-chemical overshoe boots and matching gloves. The suits extended at the neck into cowls that covered their heads leaving only their faces exposed but these were also completely covered with gray gas masks consisting of a smooth, head conforming light gray face-piece with sealed circular eye pieces and an elongated portion extending from where the nose and mouth would be, ending in the heavy circular filter, all of which made them look like weird, bug-eyed, long nosed creatures out of a low budget science fiction t.v series.

Their breaths echoing through their filters, the 16 men force charged in two neat columns into the Cramley's lobby. So fast had the situation unfolded outside augmented by the silenced weapons that the guards inside the lobby could not react on time.

The first two men of each group upon entering the lobby ran off to either side. They both had a rectangular shaped tank on their backs and held a one foot long tube in their gloved hands by two pistol grips. At the front end of the tube was a large bicone shaped muzzle while a hose led from the rear end of the tube and attached to an aperture in the rectangular tanks on their backs.

Even as the guards ran forward pushing past confused guests to get a clear shot with their American-180s, the 2 lead white suited, gas-masked men aimed their weapons and squeezed the trigger on the rear pistol grips. A powerful cone of thick light green smoke spewed out from the ends of the bicone muzzles enveloping guards and guests alike. Instantly, they collapsed to the floor. Several guards at the east end of the lobby almost aimed their weapons but the man on the right swung his weapon, flooding that side of the lobby with the light green cone. The guards tried to fire even as the green cloud enveloped them but fell to the ground in unison.

As everyone in the lobby was incapacitated, collapsing onto the carpeted floors, or slumping over furniture and tables, the remaining men, dashed up the two staircases, each column taking one of them. The security guards and guests on the foyer were shouting now. Even as guards, both uniformed and in suits aimed their weapons at the white suited invaders, the second men in each column now in the lead and also armed with the same smoke/gas thrower weapons blasted the foyer as they ran up the stairs. The green smoke enveloped the foyer from both sides, and everyone there was on the floor before the invaders reached the second floor, running for the entrance to the ballroom.

Guards inside had already seen the green smoke coming in through the entrances and were converging with their submachine guns levelled only to have the billowing green cloud at the entrances surge into the ballroom like a shapeless monster flooding the air all around them.

In the green gas filled lobby, the white suited man at the east end effortlessly vaulted the front desk past the unconscious staff and kicked open the door in the wall behind it. The men and women working at their desks in the back office who had not been alerted at all, looked up from their desks in shock at the bug-eyed, white suited being striding into the area.

"Did the diamond fair have a science fiction theme?" a white haired sales manager asked his female colleague just as green smoke billowed through their entire office space.

Even before the last few guards in the corners of the ball room collapsed as the green gas enveloped them, the rest of men in both columns all 12 of them were swarming from booth to booth like white ants in a black maze. They moved in pairs, one of them with a 10 pound sledgehammer, the other with a large cloth bag. They ran about in the smoke filled room, the hammer wielder smashing the display cases while their one with the bag swiftly grabbed the trays and emptied them into their bags.

In the security room, the waiter and waitress each holding two stick grenades with red cylinder heads, yanked out the pins at the same time and swiftly placed one on each rack of the video recorders before sprinting out of the security room. They just reached the end of the junction of the corridor and turned the corner as the whole floor shook with the thunderous explosion. An expanding ball of orange flames engulfed the entire room. A stream of flames shot out the door, blazing down the entire length of the corridor, setting the walls on fire.

In the green smoke filled ballroom, the dozen men continued smashing displays and filling their bags with diamonds while two or three of them ran along the walls flipping up the table cloths on the tables that lined them retrieving the blinking devices the waiter and waitress had planted. At the same time, one of the smoke-thrower armed men ran to the door leading to the kitchen and kicked it open. The waiters and cooks inside who were still debating whether to check on the commotion outside, gawked at the gray-faced, big eyed monster with the drooping nose who stalked in and they had one moment to yell out before everything turned green.

At the front entrance, the long banner was tossed into the rear van. The drivers got back into their vehicles with SS-19 boarding the lead van and both pulled away smoothly. The vans reached the junction that the guards had been trying to get them to go to in the first place and turned into it.

Back at the entrance of the hotel, a portly man with a bushy gray mustache in a neat double breasted dark suit and tie walked by with a young woman in a checkered overcoat. As they walked past the bodies of the guards, the injured doorman turned painfully over onto his right side, his uniformed coat over the left shoulder soaked in blood as he struggled to speak.

"H…H…Hehhh…Heehhlpp…!"

Without breaking their stride, the gray mustached man asked the young woman.

"Ms Trumbull, is that the same company we use for the security in our building?"

Ms Trumbull with just a glance at the nearest fallen guard replied.

"I don't believe so, Mr Aglet. These are from that expensive one we turned down."

"If this is what they charge for, thank goodness we took the cheaper one." Mr Aglet declared. "AND switched our corporate accounts to another hotel. Their staffs are obviously lying down on the job!"

"Goes to show paying more doesn't' always equate to getting more." Ms Trumbull sniffed.

Back at the ballroom, the white-jump suited men were now running through the equally smoke filled kitchen, jumping over the collapsed serving and kitchen staff where necessary to reach the employee exit at the other end. Instead of using the elevator as Blindside team had done earlier, they ran into the staircase and ran down, their anti-chemical over-boots squeaking loudly on the treads as they descended while their course filtered breathing echoed in the stairwell.

Upon reaching the door of the stairwell at the first floor, they burst through to be met by Blindside team who led them, running down another corridor.

Behind the hotel at the northeast corner, the two vans were already parked at a side street. An employee entrance burst open and out came Blindside team leading the white-jump suited men. The blond man jumped into the blue van while the tawny haired woman jumped into the gray van with SS-19 with the rest of the force piling again equally into both vehicles. Less than a second later, both vans pulled away. But they drove only a short distance together after pulling onto the main street before the blue van turned away to the right at a junction while the gray van continued on it's way.

Less than 10 minutes later, the gray van arrived at an abandoned 3 story building and cruised round the back to a garage door. Two men got off the van, now in normal suit, ties and fedoras, having shed their biohazard suits. They lifted up the garage door for the van to drive into the building's garage.

Inside the garage, junk, left over vehicular parts and trash laid everywhere but parked in it were 4 more cars; a dark green 1963 Buick Riviera, a teal 1965 Buick LeSabre, a maroon Citroën Ami and a yellow 1964 Chrysler 300 4-door hardtop. The gray Ford Econoline van disgorged it's occupants with all the men in their jumpsuits now either in suits and fedoras or casual clothing, their bulky biohazard suits now folded neatly in their hands and the respective ones who had manned the weapons, carrying their smoke-thrower weapons as well along with the bags of diamonds.

Without a word, they began loading their equipment, suits and loot into the trunk of three of the cars while the tawny haired waitress remained at the Ford Econoline's opened side door with SS-19, already changed into a white tube top that accentuated the sensual globes of her full bosom with her nipples pushing against the sheer fabric while baring her thick trapezius muscles, distinctive rippling deltoids and biceps. In place of the hotel's uniform skirt, she now wore a mid-thigh length light indigo cotton skirt which highlighted more of the stony, lower alabaster slabs of her quadriceps and hamstrings. While SS-19 began unbuttoning her black coat dress, the waitress strode rapidly over to the LeSabre, pulling the clips from her bun allowing her hair to fall in a soft tawny cascade down her back.

SS-19 meanwhile had finished unbuttoning her black coat dress and smoothly whipped it open and off her shoulders, revealing a lighter, mid-thigh length, long sleeved white wrap dress underneath. She then undid, pulled and tossed her black draped turban into the van in one movement to reveal another similar head gear underneath of white silk with minute gold lace embroidery to which her black veil was actually secured and remained in place.

At the LeSabre, the waitress had donned a cropped indigo jacket blouse from the trunk along with white cotton gloves and matching beret before walking quickly to the Citroën Ami, white handbag in hand, her new white kitten heeled boots clacking sharply over the floor just as SS-19 came over to the vehicle. The veiled woman kicked her black shoes off and slipped her black stockinged feet into a pair of white pumps from the LeSabre.

2 of the men came over to the LeSabre, one dressed in a beige suite and tie and matching fedora and dark glasses men getting into the driver's seat while the other in a brown suit and tie with black fedora and sunglasses waited by the rear left passenger door. The other 3 vehicles began moving, one by one smoothly exiting the garage and then leaving in different directions. Just as the third vehicle left, SS-19 closed the LeSabre's trunk with a white cartwheel sunhat on over her draped turban, her black nearly opaque veil still resting softly on her chest above her breasts, around her shoulders and back. Her new white pumps echoed over the nearly deserted garage now as she strode to the left side of the vehicle where the waiting man opened the door for her. SS-19 eased herself in without needing any handhold to steady herself. No sooner had she pulled her steely legs into the car, the man closed the door and hurried to the passenger seat next to the driver. Within a minute, the LeSabre was out of the garage.

All over District of Columbia, the cars cruised smoothly along the streets and sirens began sounding as dozens of MPD squad cars sped about, converging on the Hotel Cramley. Even as SS-19 sat in the back of the LeSabre, the muffled sounds of vehicle engine and horns filtering over her, she held a small multi-frequency scanner in her black gloved hand, tuned to the police channel. The police despatcher's voice filtered over the speaker along with various responding units.

" _All units! All units respond! 211 at Hotel Cramley. Shots fired!….All units, all units. Be on the look out. Suspects travelling in two Ford full-sized vans, a blue and a gray both with Washington plates…I repeat, suspects are travelling…"_

Even as SS-19 listened, looking straight ahead through her veil, sirens filled the air and two squad cars raced past them in the opposite lane. A few seconds later, a third squad car blared it's sirens right behind and the driver smoothly pulled the LeSabre to the extreme right of the lane and the police car roared past them.

"… _in two full-sized vans, a blue and a gray, last seen moving on Stepford avenue…Patrol Services South units at these locations to initiate road blocks at Crawford and Langton, Eddington and Cain and 40_ _th_ _Avenue towards Cranston…"_

"… _Despatch to all available units of Patrol Services North at 37_ _th_ _Street and Elm, 89_ _th_ _Street and Cole Avenue, Langton Street to Belmont view initiate road blocks now…"_

SS-19 remained seated, looking straight ahead through her veil, scanner grasped lightly in her gloved palm as three MPD squad cars roared past them in the lane on the right, sirens blaring.

"…Despatch to units R27 and R57 report in"

" _R27 to despatch. We have commenced roadblock with R57 at Eddington and Cain."_

" _Despatch to J10 through J25, Patrol Services North, please report in…"_

" _J10 to despatch, we are at scene with J11 through J23. J24 through J25's are enroute, ETA 5 minutes."_

" _Despatch to J10 copy that. Despatch to units C35, 36 and 37 proceed to 57_ _th_ _street and Kensington, 5 miles north of scene to initiate road block…"_

As SS-19 sat in serene repose as her driver slowed at a yellow light, the three MPD squad cars which had tore by on the right lane came speeding back in the other direction past them on the left lane, sirens ripping through the sounds of engines and horns.

" _Despatch to C35, 36 and 37, negative. I repeat negative. Proceed towards Orville Avenue and Belmont view to reinforce Patrol Service South units in search for suspect vehicles…"_

Sirens wailed over the horns and screeching of wheels again as the three MPD squad cars came speeding by now on the right lane going back the way they came right past the Buick LeSabre.

" _Despatch to C35, 36 and 37, belay that. I repeat, belay that. Proceed to 57_ _th_ _street and Kensington as ordered to initiate road block…"_

Wheels screeched towards the rear of the Buick LeSabre momentarily drowning out the sirens before they re-established their audio dominance and the three MPD vehicles tore by on the left lane in the same direction now as the Buick.

" _Despatch North to Despatch South, kindly keep your mittens off my units...C35, 36 and 37—57_ _th_ _street and Kensington…"_

Brakes screamed, tires screeched ahead of SS-19's vehicle and a second later C35, 36 and 37 roared by on their right heading in the opposite direction.

" _Despatch South to Despatch North, if you wish to establish clear parameters on allocation of resources and duties, kindly first master the nursery school concept of 'take-out-the-garbage' before telling others what to do…C35, 36 and 37, Orville and Belmont, search for suspect vehicles…"_

SS-19 simply sat unmoving, sculpted, black stockinged thighs under her white wrap dress crossed over one another as the squad cars u-turned again bringing about screams, yells and a horde of horn honkings before speeding past the LeSabre again now on the left lane as her driver eased their vehicle forward through the green light.

" _Despatch North to Despatch South, if you even knew the meaning of the word 'allocation' you'd realise that we aGREED that I would take out the garbage only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays which is something you usually overlook since you're too busy hogging the remote even when I'm breaking my BACK covering your slack…C35, 36 and 37, 57_ _th_ _street and Kensington initiate road blocks…"_

 _C35, 36 and 37 now roar by on the right lane._

" _Despatch South to despatch North if by slack you mean waking up EVERY-time the baby cries at 1am through 5am ever night then you are in NO position to be educating ANYONE on anything…C35, 36 and 37…search for suspect vehicles!"_

Not so melodic siren songs again rip the air as C35, 36 and 37 blasted by on the LeSabre's left.

" _Despatch North to despatch South do be advised that when you get up, I get up too especially seeing as your southern end at the moment is capable of upsetting the buoyancy of most oil tankers...C35, 36 and 37…road blocks, 57_ _th_ _street and Kensington!"_

As the three squad cars again tore by on the opposite side of the LeSabre on the right lane in the opposite direction, Despatch South snitted back.

"… _Despatch South to Despatch North kindly note that any change in buoyancy to any ocean going vessels caused by my southern end is merely to compensate for the initial loss due to your stove sized belly on the same ship…C35, 36 and 37, SEARCH for suspect vehicles!"_

The three squad cars came blasting back in the other lane.

"… _No! Initiate road block 57_ _th_ _street and Kensington!"_

" _Search for suspect vehicles!"_

" _Road block!"_

"… _C35 to Despatch North and South. We are proceeding to 45_ _th_ _Avenue and 3_ _rd_ _with C36 and 37 until further notice."_

" _Despatch South to C35! Have the suspects been sighted in that location?"_

" _C35 to Despatch North and South. Negative, but "Rosenberg's Dough-ganiyahs on Wheels" has. Please advise upon realisation, over."_

" _Despatch North to C35! What are you talking about?! Realisation of what?!"_

" _C36 to Despatch North and South. Realisation that being assigned to despatch North and South refers to assignments in the respective patrol bureaus and not opposing sides in the American CIVIL WAR which has been over for a hundred years which incidentally is also the amount of time that you two have spent hollering at each other bout' your personal problems over the MPD bandwidth! C36 to C37. Cooper, congratulations on your promotion to Master Patrol Officer, coffee is on you. Over."_

The 100 foot by 100 foot sectional garage door slid up with the slightest rattle of it's panels along with the hum of it's geared motor. Before it retracted completely, the cars started cruising in smoothly and moved to a spot in the expansive warehouse garage. There were already 5 other cars there, one of them, the maroon Citroën Ami, all parked in straight row along the western side of the garage. A number of internal loading bays lined the Northern wall of the garage and beyond the wall, sounds of machines, voices, scraping and shifting crates could be heard, the same as in any warehouse in the country.

At the eastern wall were several tables laid with black velvet cloths where many of the men were already sorting out the diamonds. Several large heaps of diamonds were already arranged on the velvet as the men emptied bag after bag of their loot.

The last 3 cars rolled smoothly into the garage, the last being the teal colored 1965 Buick LeSabre which turned and parked at the end of the row of 8 cars. As the garage door rolled back down and the driver cut the engine, the man in the brown suit and tie and black fedora again hurried around to the rear left passenger side to open the door.

Even as SS-19's steely stockinged legs swung out and reached down onto the concrete floor of the garage as smoothly as the deploying landing gears of a private jet, slow clapping slightly muffled by gloves echoed through the garage with a voice booming along with it.

"Gut gemacht! Gut gemacht! Wunderbar!"

SS-19, clutch in her gloved hand at her side walked towards the speaker just noting through her veil, the blond waiter, now with a bright blue suit jacket in place of his hotel black hotel tailcoat with a white turtle neck underneath along with the indigo skirt-suited tawny haired waitress who stood on either side of the cheering speaker. Even as the speaker kept clapping his black leather gloved hands, SS-19 spoke.

"Gerd. Kerstin. Contak zer League ov Bald-Headed Men. Tell Vinters und Sommers to be here een en owver. Haf zer diamonds sorted und packed vy carats for zhem vy zhe time zhey arrive."

The blond waiter and tawny haired waitress nodded and moved off swiftly to the sorting tables.

SS-19 finally stopped before the speaker, her white cartwheel sunhat tilting backwards slightly as she looked up into his, currently single light blue eye glittering as brilliantly as the diamonds at the tables while the monocle over his right eye was a silvery flash throwing back the lights from the ceiling.

"Flawless exzecution, S-S-Nineteen!" the speaker declared, his smile of pride stretching his puffed, lined and sagging face.

But SS-19 only saw the penetrating intelligence shining in currently his one visible eye, ignoring the meaningless surrounding facial imperfections as well as the grayish-white gelled hair that still displayed it's handsome widow's peak, as she answered, nodding as she did making her black veil rustle softly against her dress.

"Danke vielmals, Oberführer."

Oberführer Hendrik Streckenbach von Graf, as he still refers to himself, raised his left wrist, causing the soft black leather of his M43 tunic to creak slightly while he pushed back the sleeve to consult his watch.

"Und ten minutes ahead of schedule!" von Graf noted proudly.

"You taught me vell, Oberführer." SS-19's modulate alto voice issued from behind the veil.

"You do an old lehrer proud." the Oberführer beamed as brightly as the dazzling light reflecting off his monocle and reached his gloved hands towards the right side of her temple where the veil was secured.

SS-19 however, turned her head to the right gently, moving that side of it out of his reach making von Graf stop immediately before withdrawing his hands and smiled softly, nodding his head in compliance.

SS-19 brought up her white clutch, snapping open the silver clasp. Her gloved hand reached in and came out a small blue velvet drawstring bag, which she held up before the KAOS President of Espionage and Communications.

Von Graf, raised a dramatic eyebrow and gestured with pretend-uncertainty to his chest, gloved fingers just touching his black leather tunic, below the silver bordered, gray metal of his Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and crossed swords above it, hanging at his throat in between his polished silver oak leaves gorget patches.

SS-19 nodded as she pulled open the draw string tie and emptied it into her palm. The 5 brilliant, clear Motichul class paragons, each the size of a thumbnail dropped with a delightful soft clacking into her gloved palm.

Von Graf's eyes glittered even more intensely as he picked up one of the paragons between gloved index and thumb and held it up to the light.

"Exquisit!" the Oberführer proclaimed as the diamond competed with his eyes and monocle in it's reflective abilities. "Clear, pure und flawless as zer master race!"

"Zhey vill replace zer missink vuns vell." SS-19 assured.

"Ja." Von Graf's demeanor turned cold, his smile fading away as dark memories of foiled plans returned, making his eyes glitter with fierce flashes of blue.

His free gloved hand lifted up his baton, the silver Iron Crosses and Wehrmacht eagles studding it standing out boldly against it's black ebony shaft as he gazed at the silver ornate endcap, studded with diamonds along it's circumference. But a large section of the band of diamonds was now left only with pitted marks where the paragons had been.

Von Graf's voice laced with barely restrained fury edged out through his dry lips.

"Zer only vun of it's kind left. Und zhat—DUMMKOPF SHMART! Uses it as a schläger!"

Von Graf fumed dropping his baton to his side and flicking the diamond into the air and snatching it in his gloved fist as it twinkled in the light.

"A treasure of the Reich defaced! Owver short-vave LOST und scavenged vy CONTLOL!" the Oberführer ranted, tightening his gloved fist so tightly round the diamond that the leather creaked again. "Zhis vould NEVER haf happened if ju had been at my side! Instead, KAOS zent you on zhose Dummkopf errands to kill zhat Arab prince und Caronian Prime Minister! A VASTE of your skills und owver time!" von Graf whirls about, pacing, his gleaming black jackboots clip-clopping loudly over the concrete floor as he gesticulates with his baton, causing the silver eagles and iron crosses on it to flash in the light. "Und vhile assassinating zer Caronian bought uz a TEENSY step clozer to owver eventual goal, zer prince vas for nuthink! I varned zhat so-called Mr BIG zhat killing Prince Abou Ben Boobie und his cousin Kbou vould achieve nuthink eef eet vas not done on U.S soil. Only ZHEN vould zer factions favourable tovards zer Iron Curtain be able to blame it on zer U.S und sanction breaking zer oil contract vith zer kapitalists."

Von Graf stops pacing throwing his leather clad arms up and looking up at the ceiling, monocle dazzling with reflected light as he sighs.

"KAOS may pay more und haf better death benefits vut zhey DON'T listen much more zhen zer Reich!"

Just as fast, von Graf whirls back to face SS-19 who stood as unmoving as a veiled statue, the remaining 4 diamonds still in her gloved palm, and his anger dissolves at least on the surface into an expression of fatherly concern as he places his gloved hands on her broad shoulders.

"Und vorst of all!" Von Graf sighed looking upon the black veil at the shadow of the features beneath it. "U vere forced to masquerade as vun of zhose FILTHY camel-ear eating-prince's DANCERS und allow him to de-FILE you!—" Von Graf punctuated his next words by lifting up his baton and shaking the gloved fist which held it. "—Und ALL vecause Le Moco, Sebastian und Karl Danke vefuse to dress up az harem girls! Blöd feigling SCHWEINE!"

SS-19's veiled features moved almost imperceptibly as her silky alto voice slides through the fabric to caress the former SS officer's ears sending a tingle through his black uniformed body.

"Prince Kbou Ben Boobie's…defiler—did not haf zer opportunity to begin eet's task. Und it vas not in vain Oberführer. Now KAOS International vill know zheir mistake und ve only have Prince Abou left to vorry about."

"Zhere iz zhat." Von Graf sighs placing zhe paragon back into SS-19's gloved palm before propping the gloved fist on his hip and lifting his baton again shaking it for emphasis and tilting his head as he reminisced. "Ju know? In zer Reich, if zer Führer told an officer to dless up az a harem girl und dance—he dressed UP as a harem girl und dance or he is—SHOT! Just goes to show, zhere are no principals any more in zer vorld-domination-business."

SS-19 tilted her gloved hand to let the paragons trickle back into the velvet drawstring bag stating as she did.

"I vill contak owver KAOS diamantaires und haf zhem begin vork on zer baton."

"Nein, nein, nein!" Von Graf implored clucking his tongue softly as he takes the bag of diamonds from SS-19 and places a gloved hand on her broad shoulder as he assured. "Ju haf alveady vasted enough time on an old man's souvenirs! It vas my own underestimation of Shmart zhat led to zhis. I vill handle zer rest myself. Und you Nineteen, must maintain your focus und talent on much more important matters. Iz eversing veady for zer next phases?"

"Jawohl!" SS-19 confirmed before tilting her head back to look closer at the old man's face, allowing her veil to settle on her face, outlining the distinctive outlines of her nose and the sensuous curves of her full lips in soft black silk. "Und nuthink done for you—iz a vaste Oberführer."

Von Graf smiles broadly leaning towards her as he lifts his left hand from her shoulder and strokes the back of his gloved fingers across her veiled cheek. SS-19 turns her face slightly pressing her face into his touch and her warmth permeating veil and leather to caress his fingers makes the Oberführer sigh happily. A second later, SS-19 steps back from his hand and turns, walking swiftly towards her lieutenants, her boots echoing in the vast space of the warehouse garage while von Graf gazes proudly after her departing perfect sculpted white wrapped form, his monocle flashing with reflected light.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 2**

The beige uniformed security guard walks along the eastern wall of the office checking each of the 5 windows, playing his flashlight over the locks on each of them. Stopping at the fourth window as he closed in on the south wall, the guard stops to focus his light on the window and tests the lever on the lock to confirm it was secured. He then finishes checking the fifth window in the same manner and walks to the door in the southern wall and turns he knob to confirm it was also securely locked.

As he turns to play his flashlight one more time over the entire office. His light stabbed the darkness along with the rectangles of light from the windows as well as the square of illumination from the window on the main door at the western wall which led out to the corridor. Shadows played on the walls and floor as the flashlight swept over the numerous work stations, filing cabinets, typewriters, chairs and other contents in the office.

"Yo Lyle! You done?"

Lyle kept playing his flashlight over the area as his colleague appeared at the western door with a flashlight of his own.

"Yeah Cal, it's a wrap here." Lyle sighed

"C'mon, quit setting a bad example by actually lookin!" Cal grimaced tossing his inactive flashlight in the air and catching it again. "Damn office is on the 15th floor with double locked shatterproof glassed windows and we're due da walk this stupid corridor again at midnight! I need da get my doughnut and coffee if I'm gonna make it through the next hour!"

Lyle clicked off his flashlight finally and headed towards the door chuckling.

"I keep tellin ya, save everyone some time and eat enough da last you till morning!"

Cal glances at the barely visible ceiling with pretend dramatism and realization.

"Now THAT's an idea! Gonna need a new gun-belt but hey—the company pays for it anyway."

Cal chortles hitching up his heavy utility belt with holstered revolver which were trying their ardent best to escape from under his ever-growing beer belly as Lyle exits the room and locks the door with 3 keys. Both security guards walked off down the corridor, talking animatedly. The sharp knocks of their shoes echoed loudly in the corridor and slowly diminished as they got further away from the office.

Lyle and Cal's footsteps and voices were just approaching an inaudible level when a soft sharp metallic scraping sounded in the empty office. In the ceiling, a ventilation duct's outlet vent grill in the ceiling lifted up and out of it's recess and slid aside. A second later, a pair of black, flat soled rubber boots and black jump-suited legs extended down from the duct smoothly. When they were fully extended, the figure continued lowering the rest of it's body down, first it's waist and abdomen then the curves of its breasts before it shifted the grip of it's gloved hands at the edges of the ventilation duct outlet to extend it's arms, bearing it's full body weight effortlessly until they were both fully stretched before letting go.

SS-19's rubber booted feet landed soundlessly on the floor between two desks, her body folding immediately into a low crouch. Her gloved finger tips on the carpeted floor, she remains as still as a statue for a few moments, listening to the departing security guard's banter. When they were beyond the sense of her keen ears, she lifted her black silk balaclava clad head to look about, revealing that the single horizontal opening revealing her eyes and the bridge of her nose was hidden by a corresponding strip of black veil which hung from the top of the opening, hiding her eyes completely.

SS-19 however had no problem looking about the dark room and quickly stood, moving noiselessly past the rows of work stations till she almost reached the northern wall before moving past a desk to get to a tall filing cabinet. She switched on a small square flashlight mounted on a head band around her balaclava shrouded forehead which projected an intense but narrow cone of light. Looking quickly over the cabinet drawers, she almost immediately found the one she needed at the bottom.

Crouching again, SS-19 produced lock picks from pouches on her belt. There were two locks on the drawer and with a lock pick in each gloved hand, she inserted them into the keyholes. Both her hands moved independently and the locks defenses began clicking away, each click signaling one degree of it's security bypassed. Finally, SS-19 rotated both her wrists, turning both locks at the same time with the picks and the locking mechanisms snapped open.

The boxy, flat faced orange armored car cruised along the busy road smoothly on another sunlit District of Columbia day. It's bullet resistant tires within the semi-octagonal wheel housings traversed effortlessly over the asphalt as the uniformed guard/driver eased the vehicle through the traffic.

"Check in Saul." The driver said as he made a smooth turn to the right onto a broad road.

The guard in the passenger seat picked up the triangular microphone from the van's mobile 2-way radio and mashed the PTT saying.

"This is AV-45 to Nest. AV-45 to Nest, come in please, over."

" _This is Nest, over_." The voice filtered over the mike.

"AV-45 to Nest, we are on Ridgemont and Clover. ETA at Chicken Coop iiiis…" Saul glanced over at the driver who answered.

"10 minutes without jams."

"10 minutes if the roads are clear, over."

" _Nest to AV-45 at Ridgemont and Clover, ETA at Chicken Coop 10 minutes without traffic complications. Next check in at Carpenter and 4_ _th_ _Avenue in 5. Over."_

"Next check, Carpenter and 4th Avenue in 5. Copy that. Over and out."

The armored vehicle cruises on, passing a few cars and then a T-Junction, heading straight. Almost immediately, 2 Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles one from each side of the junction turned onto the main road, their riders in dark clothing and leather jackets.

SS-19 pulled out the cabinet quietly, her head mounted flashlight illuminating it's contents and she searched the files within swiftly, ears under her mask listening for the footsteps, voices or other sounds that may cause a disruption to her work. Within 3 seconds, she pulled out 2 thick files.

A black armored car with a white cab turned onto a narrow street, flanked on both sides by sidewalk cafes, diners and stores.

"Two minutes boys and breaks over." The guard driving announced to his colleagues.

"All ready." One of the two guards in the back assured as they both checked the detachable magazines of their M14 rifles before locking them back in place, pulling the bolts and thumbing the selector switches.

Closing the drawer, SS-19 retreated behind a nearby desk and opened each of them, unfolding the papers within. With a slender Minox subminiature camera from another pouch, she photographed sheet after sheet of the schematics, documents and blueprints within, telescoping the device's chasis after each shot to advance the cartridge.

The dark blue armored car with a protruding sharply sloping long hood moved effortlessly in the flowing traffic and eased to a stop at a traffic light.

"This is my second week straight driving!" The blue uniformed guard driving the vehicle declared. "Once we drop off the shipment, one of you guys take the wheel back da headquarters."

"Dave, you're the only guy I know who can complain bout' a job that lets him sit and relax all day!" one of the guards sitting in the back of the van retorted as he locked home the 34-round curved magazine of his F1 submachine gun into it's top of the barrel housing.

"You aint' gat arthritis in your joints Zack!" Dave exclaimed at the wheel. "My knees are killing me!"

Underneath the blue armored car, a man-hole cover on the road lifted up slightly before being pushed off to one side by a pair of black anti-chemical gloved hands at the end of bulky white sleeves.

SS-19 flipped over several sheets of papers in the files and stopped as her forehead flashlight illuminated a building blue print which she immediately photographed and without stopping, telescoped the chassis of the Minox before flipping to the next document.

The riders of the 2 Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles, eyes narrowed behind dark sunglasses as they hunched over the handle bars stepped hard on the gas pedals of their machines. Both of them shot forward eradicating the gap between themselves and the orange, flat nosed armored car.

"Saul! Mack!" one of the guards in the back called out, looking through the narrow rectangular bullet proof window on the back doors of the armored car. "Two guys on motorcycles approaching fast!"

Mack the driver glanced at his side mirror and saw one of the motorcycles and the black helmet of the rider leaning forward close to middle of the handle bars.

The two motorcycles smoothly moved apart as they pulled up, levelling with the orange armored car on either side. The rider on the right reached out with a left gloved hand and pressed it against the armored flank of the vehicle, leaving a small silver box with an antenna and blinking light on it.

"Mack! The one on this side just placed something on the side of the car!" Saul yelled grabbing for the mobile radio's microphone.

"Call it in! Hang on guys!" Mack yelled flooring the gas pedal.

The engine of the armored car thundered as it leaped forward with a burst of speed but the two motorcycles easily kept up with it. The motorcyclists reached into their jackets and pulled out large, short barreled tranquilizer guns.

"Gun!" Saul yelled out

"Same on this side!" Mack declared "They're goin for the tires!"

"They can't get through those!" one of the four guards at the back assured as he cocked his H&K G3 assault rifle.

"AV-45 to Nest! AV-45 to Nest, come in! We have a code red! I repeat code red!" Saul yelled into the microphone, his thumb knuckle white from holding down the PTT.

Static blasted over the microphone.

"I think we're being jammed!" Saul exclaimed

The riders on both sides, calmly fired their tranquilizer guns at each of the tires on their sides producing a _pfft_ that was drowned out by the engines of the vehicles. A dart about 6 inches long struck each of the tires at the side, their needle heads sinking deep into the bullet proof tires but without any discernible effect. But as they spun along with the tires, a blinking red light could be seen at the rear ends of the darts at the center of their stabilizing vanes.

SS-19 closed one of the files in the dark office, and flipped open the second file, her head flashlight immediately illuminating another set of schematics. She began snapping with her Minox subminiature camera. Outside the office at the end of the corridor, Lyle and Cal turned the corner and began walking past the offices on either side.

"I'll GLADLY stand out there and guard the shipment if one of you'll drive for the rest of the week!" Dave declared at the wheel while underneath the blue armored car, a figure in the full encapsulating white jumpsuit, head and face shrouded in the cowl and bug-eyed, long nosed gas mask had emerged from the manhole, up to the chest.

The jump-suited operative reached up with a gloved hand and attached a silver box with the antenna and blinking light to the underside of the armored car before pulling up a long barreled tranquilizer gun. Putting the stock to shoulder, the operative fired in rapid succession, turning with each of the four shots to put a blinking-ended dart into each of the tires.

The black and white armored car was approaching the mid-point of the narrow street when on either sides of the street, fast precise movements broke out. On the left, two men in suits, ties and fedoras sitting at different tables at a sidewalk café reading their newspapers over lunch suddenly lowered their reading materials as the armored car approached to take aim with short barreled dart guns from their suit jackets. The whispered shots of the dart guns struck the tires on the left side. At the same time, on the right side of the road, inside a freestanding newsstand shack, the newspaper vendor who had been relaxing in his chair, a dull colored flat cap pulled low over his thick light brown hair and stony square-jawed features as he read a magazine and smoked a cigar, tossed aside the magazine and reached under his counter to retrieve a long barreled dart gun as he leaped to his feet. Pressing the folding stock to his black jacketed shoulder, he fired two quick shots, darts hitting the tires on the right of the black and white armored car as it cruised by.

"What the hell was that?!" the driver exclaimed looking left and right. "Get on the radio!"

Even as the guard next to him grabbed for the triangular microphone of their mobile radio, the driver shifted gears and stomped with desperate fury on the accelerator pedal. In perfect dichotomy to the thunderous roar of the armored vehicle as it leaped forward with a surge of power, Gerd's light blue eyes lifted to look at their quarry from where he lounged at one of the café's outdoor tables, decked out in a neat navy blue suit and white turtle neck, apparently reading a newspaper, one ankle resting on the other knee. Before the armored vehicle moved 10 feet at it's new speed, Gerd's right hand emerged from the pocket of his sport jacket with a large silver lighter, thumb flicking open the casing's cover to reveal a red button in place of the flame nozzle. As the armored vehicle roared towards the end of the street, Gerd's thumb pressed down on the red button producing an electronic beep.

The roar of the armored vehicle's engines were momentarily drowned out as the darts on each of the wheel exploded, sending bits of flames, metal shards and flaps of bullet resistant rubber flying outwards from each tire housing. The armored car's belly struck the asphalt with an ear shattering, sparks producing screech. The newspaper vendor vaulted over the counter of his new stand and ran to the halted vehicle, dart rifle in one hand as he kept puffing calmly on his cigar. Smoke and flames belched and flared from the armored car's decimated tires in perfect contrast to the slow, thin bluish smoke rising from the vendor's cigar. Reaching the armored vehicle, the flat capped vendor slapped the blinking white transmitter with the antenna onto the side before running away.

The two motorcyclists on either side of the speeding orange armored car lifted their boots off the gas pedals and their gloved fingers jammed on the brakes. Both immediately fell back as the armored car shot away from them.

"They're giving up!" Saul yelled staring at this side mirror. "They can't get through…"

Saul stopped in mid-sentence, gaping as he saw in the side mirror, the motorcyclist on the right, lifting a gloved fist from the handle bar with some kind of device on it resembling a walkie-talkie. He just barely made out the rider mashing a button on it with gloved thumb and the guards' world rocked. Their orange armored car seemed to fly off the road for an instant as all 4 of it's bullet resistant tires erupted into flames and flying shreds of burning rubber before crashing down. Saul and Mack was hurled forward, barely held back by their seat belts while their colleagues in the back were thrown hard against the walls of the vehicle, caroming off hard.

The white jump suited and gas masked operative in the sewer access had replaced the manhole and now climbed rapidly back down via the rungs fixed into the walls of the sewer access. Upon reaching the bottom and hoping off the rungs to the grimy floor of the sewer, the operative produced a walkie-talkie like remote control and glove-thumbed a button on it.

"If it'll spare us your bellyaching bout your geriatric knees for the rest of the week," Zack chortled. "I'll gladly dri…"

Zack was cut off by a deafening boom and he was tossed along with his fellow guards, off their seats to crash painfully into the walls of their armored vehicle.

SS-19 flipped through the contents of the second folder, telescoping the Minox's chasis rapidly and snapping shots of the documents as the sound of the security guards' shoes clomping on the floor outside in the corridor grew exponentially louder in her ears. In the corridor Cal tossed his flashlight impatiently as he waited outside one of the office's till Lyle emerged from it and locked it again announcing.

"All clear."

"Imagine that." Cal grimaced as they moved to the next office.

The orange flat-faced armored car grinded to a halt, smoke rising from the remnants of it's tires within the semi-octagonal wheel housings.

"That's it!" Mack yelled as beads of perspiration dripped from his forehead. "It's dead!"

The men in the back of the armored vehicle were struggling to get off the floor where they had been thrown, grabbing for their fallen H&K G3 assault rifles.

"It's no use! The radios out!" Saul yelled throwing the microphone onto the dashboard in frustration.

50 feet ahead of the wrecked orange armored vehicle a maroon Chevrolet SportVan shot out from a side street, it's own engines announcing it's arrival as it turned sharply into the main street with a screech of it's tires. As it barreled head on towards the armored vehicle, the two motorcyclists pulled up smoothly from behind and stopped about 10 ft from their objective.

"Here they come! Here they come!" one of the guards in the back of the black and white armored vehicle yelled from where he was crouched at the back door, clutching his M14 and looking out the narrow rectangular slot in the double back door.

"Radios out!" the guard in the passenger seat next to the driver yelled to them where he held the microphone which emitted nothing but static.

Behind them, a red van had sped forward past the various cars in between them and roared in their direction. As the guards quickly ensured all the doors of their vehicle were secure, the red van screeched to a stop, less than a car length behind them and it's side door slid open. The guards gaped through their narrow view slots in their vehicles armored back door as several figures in white jumpsuits, covering them all the way to their heads and gray gas masks with circular eye pieces and bulky circular filters hanging like a long nose from the center spilled from the van and ran towards them. Two of the jump-suited men bore long white compressed air canisters with a hose attached to them leading to what looked like a 2-foot long metal spike.

"They've got some kind of gas!" one of the guards yelled. "Get your masks on!"

The black van had come out from a side street less than 30 ft ahead of them and it now screeched to a stop, head to head with their blue armored car, within a truck length away. Dave could see what appeared to be a bug-eyed monster with gray face and long nose wearing a white jumpsuit, behind the wheel. Similarly dressed men spilled out from the side door of the van.

"Masks! Get your masks on!" Dave yelled grabbing for his when he saw what the attackers were carrying.

As the guards in the back struggled into their gas masks, the guard in the passenger seat next to Dave kept yelling into the triangular microphone of their mobile-radio, his thumb's knuckle white where he mashed the PTT.

"AT-7 to base! This is AT-7 to base! Code red! Code Red! Come in!"

Nothing but static replied them as the jammer device on the belly of the armored vehicle blinked away silently doing it's work.

"Forget the radio! Get your mask on!" Dave urged his mask already halfway down over his face.

Outside, two of the jump-suited, gas-masked men jammed the spike like canister attachments into the radiator grill of the blue armored vehicle while their companions who held the canisters themselves turned the valve.

Light green smoke billowed into the cab of the black and white armored vehicle as the driver and passenger guard secured their gas masks and held their revolvers in their hands and the guards in the back crouched, aiming their M14s at the back door of the vehicle ready for their attackers to pry open the doors somehow. They ignored the green smoke as it filled the entire interior of the vehicle remaining focused through the lenses of their gas masks.

"Wait..wha…wha…" one of the guards muffled voice tried to express through his gas mask as he swayed in the smoky green.

His M14 slipped out of his hands and he collapsed to the floor of the vehicle. Within 2 seconds, his gas masked colleagues collapsed as well, their M14's clattering as they struck the floor and the driver and passenger guard slumped forward unconscious onto steering wheel and dashboard.

"Wait, wha..wha..going..on?" Mack struggled to say from behind his gas mask as the green smoke swirled within their orange armored vehicle.

The jump suited, gray gas-masked men from the Chevrolet van SportVan had jammed some form of spike connected to gas canisters into their radiator grill which made them don their masks.

Mack heard the loud thumps from behind first and he turned, his own head swimming and barely just made out through the lenses of his gas mask and the green haze, the forms of the guards in the back gas masks on but yet collapsed on the floor of the vehicle, H&K G3 assault rifles strewn about. Saul slumped forward, gas mask hitting the dash board and Mack followed suit doubling over in between their seats.

SS-19 telescoped the Minox's chasis several times, clicking the button while moving through the contents of the final folder. She flipped over another page and put the Minox to her veiled eyes, collapsing and extending the chasis of the device advance the cartridge inside even as the clacking of the guards' shoes arrived outside the door of the office she was in. The jingling sound of keys was thunderous in the dark silence and SS-19 snapped another photo and telescoped the Minox's casing even as she heard the tumblers of the lock clicking as the key was inserted.

Outside the door, Cal rolled his eyes as his colleague turned the key in the first lock on the door.

"You're the only one I know who actually checks EVERY office, back and forth! You KNOW you can just fake the logs!" Cal grumbled "The bosses can't tell and we don't get paid EXTRA for this!"

"You know the problem with you Cal?" Lyle grimaced as he worked the second lock. "No damn pride in your work!"

SS-19 closed the folders, swept them together and lunged for the cabinet.

The interior of the blue armored vehicle was now a billowing storm of smoky green as Zack and the other guards, gas masks on, readied their F1 sub-machine guns.

"I should'ev got that extra coffee this morning…" one of the guards next to Zack muttered through his mask as he aimed his F1 at the rear door.

"What?!" Zack exclaimed.

"Oh…on second thoughts… I don't think that's the problem…" the guard said and promptly fell sideways from a crouch into an unconscious heap.

Zack heard a sound behind him and turned to see, through the billowing green that Dave had also slumped forward, gas mask pressing into the steering wheel. The other guards groaned behind their gas masks and Zack realized he was doing the same and all of them slumped in various directions to the floor of their armored car, F1s dropping onto the floor or across their chests.

Behind, the incapacitated blue armored vehicle with swirling in columns from it's devastated tires, another manhole cover lifted up and moved aside above black rubber gloved hands to scrap dully on the asphalt. The gloved hands gripped the edges of the manhole and the operative in the sewers climbed out before strolling casually towards the armored vehicle.

Stopping at the van's handle-less rear double doors, the figure pulled out a device with a pistol grip and 10 inch long cylindrical body. Aiming it at the top of the left panel, the figure squeezed the trigger and a high pitch whine pierced the air as an intense red laser beam emitted from the tip of the device to touch the panel just an inch from the top edge and about 5 inches from where it met the other half of the double door. The figure moved the flaring laser beam to the right leaving a glowing red line in the armor plating, crossing the middle line where the double doors met onto the right panel for another 5 inches before moving the device downwards.

Upon finishing, a glowing 10 inch wide rectangle with the height of the entire door surrounded the line where both panels of the double doors met. Lowering the device, the figure stepped up to the door, turning sideways and slammed an elbow into the middle of the glowing outline. The long narrow rectangle of armored door along with the thick vertical titanium bolts behind it that had held it in place, popped inwards and toppled like a fallen tree inside the vehicle with a hollow boom while thick green gas poured through the glowing edged aperture. The figure stepped backwards and 4 of the white-suited gas-masked men converged on the back door. Thrusting a crowbar through the long glowing aperture left in the double door, they popped it open effortlessly and clouds of thick green gas poured out to greet them.

The men jumped into the armored vehicle, the green smoke shrouding them harmlessly as they stepped over the fallen guards and began rifling through the contents inside.

The second lock on the office door clicked free and Lyle turned the handle and pushed in. As the door opened and the cone of illumination from his flashlight sliced into the darkness ahead of him, SS-19's long legs pulled up into the outlet vent of the ventilation duct in the ceiling. Lyle stepped into the office, sweeping his flashlight about just as the outlet vent's grill slipped silently into place.

SS-19 watched the guards through the grill in the ceiling, her lithe powerful body folded over effortlessly in the darkness of the cramp ventilation duct. She saw the lead guard point his flashlight into the corner where she had been.

Lyle focused his light on the large filing cabinets and found them all closed as they should be. A frustrated growl was yanked from Cal as Lyle walked over to the corner and pulled at several of the drawers, from the top all the way to the bottom ones to ensure they were locked.

"All you get as Employee of the Month is a lousy MUG!" Cal exclaimed tossing his arms into the air.

Lyle finally confirmed all the cabinets were securely locked and strode back to his friend before both exited the office, locking the door behind them.

As SS-19 began sliding herself away through the ventilation duct, she could still hear the guards as their fading footsteps echoed in the corridor.

"I SWEAR this is the LAST time I pull the night shift with you Lyle! You seem to think us good honest folks should actually WORK for money!"

The operative with the laser raised a walkie-talkie to it's gas-mask which barely disguised the strength of the moderated, alto tones flowing through it as smoothly as the green smoke had permeated the armored vehicle's interior.

"S-S-Nineteen to Kolector Vun und Two. Status."

The pair of Royal Enfield Bullet motorcycles pulled to a smooth stop just 10 feet behind the incapacitated boxy orange armored vehicle, their engines beating steadily as both riders jumped off after deploying their kick stands. Both riders pulled off their helmets and revealed for the one who triggered the explosives, a head of tawny hair pulled back smoothly into a neat bun.

Placing her helmet on the bike handle, Kerstin moved with swift strides to towards the armored vehicle as it continued to belch smoke from it's 4 octagonal wheel housings. Holding a walkie-talkie to her smooth lips in her gloved hand while drawing the laser cutter from inside her jacket, she spoke.

"Collector Two here. Target is incapacitated, breaching now."

With that, Kerstin stopped at the van's backdoors where 5 men in the white fully encapsulated suits and gray gas masks waited on either side. There were of course no handles on the armored double doors and Kerstin aimed the weapon high. The laser sliced through the short distance to burn neatly into the left panel just an inch from it's top edge, the flaring light almost permeating Kerstin's aviator glasses.

Gerd's laser reached the point where it had begun, completing it's rectangular journey, encompassing the vertical bolts behind the door. He stepped back as his men attacked the door, knocking away the glowing edged cutout with a mallet before prying the double doors of the black and white armored vehicle open, releasing green smoke out into the air and street.

As his men jumped into the smoky green interior of the armored vehicle, the light-blond KAOS agent lifted his left hand and spoke into a wrist communicator.

"Collector Vun. Target breached. Collection unzer vay."

SS-19 stood by watching as one by one, her men leaped out of the blue armored vehicle, each hefting two large white sacks and ran back to their black van. Once the last jump suited KAOS agent jumped from the green clouded interior of the armored car, she walked behind him as he ran back to their van.

"S-S-Nineteen to Kolector Vun und Two. Kolection completed." She spoke into her walkie-talkie reaching the black van just as the last man had jumped inside. "Proceeding to phaze beta."

With that, she climbed smoothly into the black van. The men had barely shut the rear doors before the engine roared and the vehicle leaped forward executing a 180 degree turn, smoke rising from it's screeching tires on the asphalt.

Kerstin's laser completed it's rectangular cut. Releasing the trigger, she stepped back, pivoting on her left boot to present her right side to the armored vehicle and leaning to the left, she lifted up her right leg and smoothly thrusted it out in a high side kick, backed by the power of her bulging quadriceps and hamstring to drive her right boot heel into the glowing edged cutaway in the vehicle's double door. The entire van shook as the rectangular cutaway tore away inwards leaving the still glowing outline it once occupied.

She stepped away for her men to work as green fumes funneled out in a long think upwards cascade while she spoke into her walkie-talkie.

"Kolector Two. Kolection unzer vay."

The black van moved smoothly through roads and streets unimpeded. It had reduced speed to avoid attracting attention now that it was a safe distance from the target. Crouched inside, with her gas mask and white cowl still on even though the rest of the men had already removed theirs, SS-19 listened to Gerd and Kerstin's voices filtering through her walkie talkie.

" _Kolector Vun. Kolection completed, proceeding to phaze beta…Kolector Two, kolection completed, proceeding to phaze beta_ "

SS-19's gloved thumb mashed the PTT and her steely alto tones sliced through her PPE distinctively.

"Rendezvous at phaze gamma. Out."


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER 3**

"Thank you inspector Clayton." The Chief said to the lean, wide shouldered man in the light colored suit and tanned fedora while looking over the thick file he had been handed. "I'll have my people pick up the rest of the information from your station before lunch."

"You're welcome to it." Clayton shrugged indifferently. "One more problem off our plate. Let us know when your guys are done so we can open up the street?"

"Absolutely." The Chief nodded and turned to the scene on the street as the police inspector walked away.

The sight of the black armored car with the white cab and charred tires resting on the narrow street at the mid-point was enough to aggravate the Chief's ulcers again just when they were settling down after their recent successful prosecution of several of KAOS' top executives.

Taking a breath for strength which failed to ease the gnawing in his gut, the Chief walked towards the armored vehicle where several CONTROL lab personnel in white lab coats were examining it with a myriad of tools, peering through magnifying glasses and other form of visual aids and collecting samples with tweezers.

Both ends of the street had been cordoned off with steel crowd control barricades manned by uniformed police officers who were redirecting the traffic. The entire length of the streets on both sides were blocked off by wide police barricade tape strung between the crowd control barricades to keep out civilians. But both sides of the street were lined with diners and cafes along with the addition of a freestanding newsstand shack on the right so curious onlookers were unavoidable despite the efforts of several uniformed police officers on both sides urging them to move on.

As the Chief reached the armored vehicle, a clipped nasal voice reached his ears.

"There he is! Chief!"

Praying for strength and trying to think positive hoping it will soothe his ulcers for a few precious minutes, the Chief turned to see the familiar figures at the end of the street outside the crowd control barricade. A group of uniformed MPDC officers who keeping onlookers back while promptly shifting the steel barricades slightly to allow the two CONTROL agents entrance.

The big eared, thin lipped secret agent 86 as usual had a smug, self-assured look on his face as he marched over, dressed in a dim gray suit with matching double-breasted vest and a black tie patterned with small blue splashes. His usual quick, over confident strides were in stark contrast to 99 next to him. Dressed in a long sleeved, A-line ultramarine dress with a turtle-neck decorated with a red and orange band of fabric that hugged her graceful neck and a yellow beret atop her dark brown shoulder length hair, 99's slender, lean legs flowed gracefully beneath the knee length hem of her dress, seemingly in slow motion but yet somehow, kept her side by side with 86. The vision that she was, as always was the calming wave of anesthetic that the Chief needed in the face of this latest crisis.

Still as the duo reached him, the Chief found himself smiling genuinely as he lifted his arms to both of them in a welcoming gesture.

"Welcome back Max!" he greeted them.

"Thanks Chief!" Max nodded.

"Max—" the Chief said gravely. "—after the fantastic job you did on the stand for the KAOS trial, nothing would please me more than to let you remain off-duty for another TWO weeks. But unfortunately, we're shorthanded as usual and I really need you on this."

"No problem Chief!" declared 86 with a curt nod. "Duty calls and I'm ready da get back into action!"

"Good! I have your next assignment right here." The Chief said hefting the heavy file he had in his hands. "It's a robbery case."

"Great!" Max said enthusiastically. "Who do you want me da rob?"

99 standing next to Max, with her slender hip thrusted out and her head leaning in towards his shoulder gave a lop sided smile at the question as she turned her head to him.

The Chief's face fell as he shook the file in his hand slightly in desperation.

"No Max…WHY do you always assume I want you to commit a felony?! I need you to SOLVE a robbery!"

"Oh." Max titled his head back, pouting as he turned to 99. "It would be MUCH easier to do the robbing."

"An armored car heist." 99 glanced at the incapacitated vehicle hoping the Chief wouldn't join it's state anytime soon.

"That's right." The Chief sighed and beckoned them over closer to the vehicle.

The three of them stood at the opened back doors of the armored car where there were 3 CONTROL lab personnel inside searching the interior with blue colored lights.

"But it goes further than that." The balding Chief declared lifting a hand for emphasis. "First. It's not 'an' armored car heist—it's THREE armored car robberies."

"At the same time?!" 99 blinked in disbelief.

"That's right." The Chief nodded. "The other two are at Ridgemont and Clover and Clement's and Seventh. I have teams at each of those locations now processing the scene and collecting clues. From what we can tell, all three took place at the same time, with split second coordination."

"Splendid!" This from Max.

"What?" the Chief's eyebrows sagged. "Max I wouldn't call this a GOOD thing!"

"Sure it is!" Max declared arching his eyebrows. "If even criminals can put aside their differences in the spirit of cooperation and common goals, there might be hope yet for our boys up at Capitol Hill."

As the Chief's jaw dropped and he squinted at Max, 99 stepped in as usual hoping to head off the aneurysm the older man must surely be coming closer to by every minute he spent with 86.

"Chief. Were the guards hurt? Were they or any witnesses able to provide any leads?"

The Chief turned away from the beady-eyed 86 to allow the calming vision of 99 to sooth his nerves for a moment before replying.

"Luckily this time, all the guards survived and we're getting their statements. So far, it's not good."

"Wait. This time?" 99 inquired.

"I didn't hear bout' any other armored car heists recently." Max pointed out.

"Not armored cars." The Chief's balding head shook gravely. "The diamond fair robbery, at the Hotel Cramley about two weeks ago."

"You believe it's the same group responsible, Chief." 99 stated.

"I'm afraid so."

"I can't believe the Cramley managed da wrangle themselves a diamond trade fair." Max squinted raising his hands in disbelief. "I mean, why would anyone trust them after what happened to their guests?!"

"Yes." The Chief nodded emphatically as he crossed his hands before him holding the file. "The owners spent a great deal of time and resources trying to salvage their reputation. Pulled a lot of strings with the governor and influential leaders in the jewelry industry to persuade the top diamond retailers from Philadelphia and New York to come in on it. And in the Cramley's defense, they spent a fortune on additional security just for the fair by hiring the top security firm in D.C. Over THIRTY armed guards along with augmented arrays of close circuit camera surveillance, metal detectors, the works! Yet these robbers got through all of that, incapacitating everyone and killing almost TEN of the guards!"

"That's terrible!" 99 exclaimed, her large blue eyes widening.

"Well, there is an upside to this." Max said lifting an eyebrow.

"How Max?" 99 frowned.

Max shrugged, explaining simply.

"First eight of their female guests get kidnapped and now this—they HAF'TA be slashing their room rates! Great time for a staycation!"

As 99 tightened her soft luscious lips and rolled her eyes sideways at Max, the Chief lowered his head and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose to ease the migraine he knew was inevitable today.

"But Chief, I don't get it." Max continued. "Sure these are big robberies but they're robberies. Why's CONTROL getting involved?"

"Because, from what we determined from the Cramley job and these armored car robberies," the Chief explained, lifting his head and his eyes now narrowing with focus. "the manner in which they were executed displays a level of speed—timing, precision and coordination very few ordinary criminal groups today could match."

The Chief lifted a finger, shaking it for emphasis as he elaborated. "At the Cramley, an advance team on the inside killed the guards at the entrance and in the security command and control center to prevent them from alerting the police. This enabled the rest of their group to arrive in two vans and move in unhindered to steal the diamonds. All the video recordings were destroyed with well-placed explosives eradicating all footage of the actual robbery. The police estimated it was all over in under five minutes. The vans they used were found three days later in two abandoned buildings—both reported stolen over a month before and had fake license plates placed on them. Very professional and well planned. Just like these armored cars today. But MOST of all, the EQUIPMENT they used are too high tech for ordinary criminals."

"What kind of equipment Chief?" this from 99 as she brushed a lock of soft raven hair back from her eyes with her gloved fingers.

"Well for one thing," the Chief said crossing his hands again and lowering his head, brows furrowed in concentration. "our lab examined the closed circuit cameras at the Cramley and they discovered some of the visual input circuits had been burned out from the inside. Professor Windish believed some form of high-intensity electromagnetic signal was used to disrupt the cameras just before the robbery took place. No such devices were discovered at the scene so the robbers must have retrieved them during the process." The Chief paused to gesture with his file at the armored vehicle. "It's the same for today's robberies. The guards in all three cars confirmed their shortwave radios were jammed and at least at the other two, they saw the robbers planting a device against the side of the armored cars just before it happened. No surprise, we can't find the devices now."

The Chief beckoned them slightly off to the side so he could point at the wheel housing of the armored car and the remnants of the wheel. Both Max and 99 peered closely as the Chief explained.

"These armored cars have bullet resistant, run-flat tires with internal support rings that would enable the vehicle to continue running even if the tire should somehow be penetrated. As you can see, the robbers utilized an explosive charge delivered via a high-velocity dart to basically destroy the entire assembly. You know what this means."

Max squinted at the damage before looking up.

"They all bought their tires from Firestone?"

The Chief's cheeks spasm in fury and his arms shook as he yelled.

"NO Max! It's KAOS! Only KAOS has such sophisticated equipment!"

As Max cringed at the Chief's outburst, 99 looked to both sides of the street.

"I take it the KAOS agents posed as customers at these cafes and diners on both sides?" she asked "Plus…oh the newspaper vendor was in on it too?"

The Chief breathed deeply to calm himself, allowing 99's logical perception to calm his deteriorating nerves.

"That's right Ninety-Nine." He pointed with his file again to the newsstand shack where several men and women in white lab coats were searching through it. "At Ridgemont and Clover, motorcycles were used to overtake the armored car, shoot the explosive darts and plant the device. For the third one, based on the angle of the explosion, our lab personnel believe the darts were fired into the inward facing surface of the tires. Most likely a KAOS agent came out of a manhole right under the vehicle when it stopped at a light."

"I take it that's the one with no witnesses seeing the jamming device being planted?"

"Correct Ninety-Nine." The Chief confirmed

"I think we know how they did it then." Max nodded

"The KAOS agent who came out of the manhole placed the electromagnetic transmitter under-NEATH the armored car as well as shooting the explosives into the tires." 99 offered

"Do you MIND, Ninety-Nine?!" Max scowled at 99. "I'LL handle this!"

"Sorry Max." 99 apologized tilting her head forward with a forced smile.

Max turned back to the Chief and raised his finger to explain.

"THAT means—the KAOS agent who came out of the manhole placed the electromagnetic transmitter under-NEATH the armored car—as WELL as shooting the explosives into the tires."

As Max smiled and nodded curtly to end his well thought out deduction, 99 smiled and nodded at him while still leaning her head towards his shoulder.

"Good thinking Max."

"Brilliant." The Chief sighed with tired, drooping eye brows before pointing to the one side of the opened double door. "And of course, that."

Max and 99 gaped at the neat cut out in the thick armored door with a corresponding one on the other door, both forming a long rectangle if the doors were shut.

"They cut through the bolts, top and bottom!" Max exclaimed. "An acetylene torch couldn't do that on THIS armor. Least not in so short a time."

"That's right, Smart." Confirmed a voice from inside the car.

They stepped back to look inside the armored car and one of the lab personnel, half bent walked to the edge of the vehicle and sat down on it, resting his feet on the road and his hands on the edges of the armored car's floor. He was in his 50ties and thin at about 5 foot 8, wearing a tie in his shirt under the lab coat. His head was balder than the Chief's, barely hidden by the comb-over and his face even more wrinkled and tired looking especially being in the field.

"What do you think Professor?" the Chief asked.

Professor Windish wiped his sweating bald pate with a white handkerchief before pointing to half of the rectangular aperture on the panel to their right.

"As you can see, the edges are smoother than anything an acetylene or even plasma torch could ever achieve. A thermic lance would have generated such massive heat that everything inside the armored car would have been destroyed before it got through. Only a laser is capable of such focus and precision." Tilting his shining bald head to one side for emphasis, Windish continued. "It's KAOS' new Variable High-Intensity Beam Projector. We know they perfected it less than four months ago. Basically, a battlefield version of our more subtle pocket disintegrator and laser pen."

"Plus they retail at half the price with a discount on every fifth piece." Max declared nodding his head knowingly and as everyone frowned at him, followed up with. "There's economy for buying bigger in bulk."

Letting out a breath and fighting the gnawing pain in his head which competed with the ulcers in his gut, the Chief inquired of the aged scientist.

"Have you and your men found anything else that could give us a lead Professor?"

"You know everything that I know at this time." Windish affirmed resting both his hands back on the floor edge of the vehicle. "But we'll be taking everything we can from all three locations back to the lab for more detailed analysis. I'll let you know the moment we find anything else."

"Thank you professor." Turning to his agents, the Chief continued gesturing with his hand and file for emphasis. "We need to find KAOS and put a stop to this as SOON as possible! We can—NOT allow them to succeed in another robbery! Already the losses are staggering! Not just in terms of human casualties but also the profit they've acquired in such a short time!"

"How much did they make off with from these armored cars Chief?" 99 inquired

The Chief gestured at the armored car with his file as he replied.

"All three cars were delivering cash. This one, three hundred thousand dollars while the other two carried amounts totaling half a million set for delivery to various banks in the D.C area."

Max's beady eyes narrowed with suspicion as he leaned forward, casting a sideways glance at this superior as he asked.

"Was one of them Sherman's Bank at third street?"

The Chief frowned lowering his file and hands.

"Does it matter?"

"Well—" Max said straightening with a shrug. "—That's my bank and I needed da know if it was a good time da ask them for a loan."

The Chief blew out a frustrated breath which did nothing to calm his nerves.

"What about the Cramley's diamond fair Chief?" 99 inquired

"That's the worst." The Chief sighed. "KAOS got away with TWENTY million dollar worth of diamonds and other precious stones. Together with their haul from these armored cars, they already have enough to finance their North American operations for at least the next three YEARS!"

Windish tilted his head at the agents as he asked the Chief.

"Have you told them bout' the gas?"

The Chief nodded and started to speak but Max leaned forward scowling at the professor.

"I had a chalupa and burrito for BREAK-fast okay?! You DON'T have to be RUDE about it, thank you very much!"

As 99's gloved hand went up to her mouth as she stifled a laugh and Windish squinted at Max thinking the heat had finally gotten to both of them, the Chief broke out almost in convulsions as he yelled.

"MAX! We're not TALKING about your digestive system!"

As Windish dropped his head, shaking it in dismay, Max mouthed an 'oh' and smiled sheepishly.

"What's the professor referring to Chief?" 99 asked shifting her white handbag on her right shoulder.

With a shaky hand raised to forestall further questions, the Chief replied.

"I'll explain back at the office. I wanted you to see at least one of the scenes first. The rest of the information and findings will be sent to us by this afternoon along with whatever the police has on the Cramley robbery."

99 nodded and Max straightened, puffing out his chest in his tailored dim gray suit as he placed a hand on the opened left half of the armored car's rear double door and declared.

"Don't worry Chief! I'm ready da go and I won't REST till EVERY member of the KAOS robbery unit is captured!"

The Chief nodded, forcing a smile.

"Alright Max. I always know I can count on you."

"Absolutely!" Max continued nodding with full confidence and 99 also nodded sharply smiling along to assure the Chief. "With the KEEN instincts—" pointing at his temple, "—EAGLE eyes—" pointed at this eye "—and RAZOR intellect—" touching his forehead "—of Maxwell SMART—KAOS' latest diabolical plan is DOOMED to fail!"

Max punctuates his reassuring speech with a shove of his hand that whipped the left half of the double door shut with a resounding boom.

"AAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHHH!"

Max cringed, eyes popping and lips peeling back to reveal gritted teeth while he yanked back his hand shaking them as Windish jumped to his feet screaming and hollering tearing his right hand from the edge of the armor car's floor where it had been resting.

99's delicate jaw dropped in shock and dismay as the professor clutched at his wrist while the misshapen fingers of his right hand trembled and shook. The Chief ran forward to support him, yelling as he did.

"MAX!"

86 still with his hands pulled back to his chest and fingers wriggling, leaned forward and offered.

"Would you believe—doomed to LOTS of inconvenience?"

Windish clutching his trembling hand and gritting his teeth in agony, narrowed his eyes together with the Chief, both growling and mumbling incoherent vitriol in unison at the bane of their existence while 99 helplessly sighed and rolled her eyes into a sideways glance at Max who smiled lopsidedly while using an index finger to gingerly push the half of the double door close again slowly.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER 4**

"Alright, this is what professor Windish was referring to." The Chief said settling down in his chair behind his desk back in his office at CONTROL headquarters. "And it'll affect your mission in tracking KAOS."

"What is it Chief?" 99 asked as she lifted her left thigh to ease herself down on the edge of the Chief's desk to his right while Max stood in front of the desk.

The Chief straightened in his chair, gesturing with both hands, the finger tips just inches apart as he spoke.

"It's how KAOS managed to overwhelm the Cramley and armored car guards so easily. All witness accounts gathered by the police from both robberies, describes the main force of the robbers dressed in some form of white anti-chemical jumpsuits and gray colored gas masks with a single circular filter."

"Sounds like the GP-5 gas mask Chief." Max noted. "Soviet made."

"Yes which fits perfectly with KAOS' preference for weaponry and equipment produced behind the Iron Curtain."

"So KAOS invented and is using some form of knock-out gas." 99 conjectured.

"Correct." The Chief nodded before shaking his head and letting out a breath. "But they didn't invent it. Witnesses all reported some form of bright green smoke or gas that spread at an incredible speed over any given area. Professor Windish has been unable to find any trace of it left in any of the armored vehicles and blood results from all the guards, guests and witnesses from the Cramley and the armored car show no trace of any form of chemicals or toxins. Plus the fact that the guards in the armored cars were all issued gas masks for such an event but they were STILL affected! We've checked their masks and they were all in perfect working order. All this coupled with the speed of the gas' effects—it could mean only one thing. It's _Super Sleep_!"

"Why does that sound familiar?" Max frowned one hand on his hip and the other grasping his chin.

"Max! Don't you remember?!" 99 exclaimed clenching a delicate fist in the air, her hazel eyes wide. "It's the U.S Army's tranquilizer agent. _Project Super Sleep_!"

"One of the military secrets that KAOS managed to transmit out of the country with their shortwave a few months back!" Max affirmed shaking a finger in 99's direction. "But Chief are we sure?"

"I'm afraid so." The Chief said sadly. "Based on the specifications and formula which we obtained from the Army's Chemical Corps, Super Sleep when deployed, takes the form of a thick green vapor or gas which spreads within any confined area within seconds regardless of size. It represents the height of chemical weapons research by the Chemical Corps. Not only does it render unconsciousness within two seconds, it's molecular formulation, enables _Super Sleep_ to penetrate the highest level protection hazmat suits to enable absorption through skin pores. So gas masks alone are useless as are any hazmat suits, even the ones our military has at the moment. After absorption, it leaves no traces in the blood stream. All this fits perfectly with the effects the guards and witnesses described from both robberies."

"So the army never developed any form of protective suits that could withstand their own invention?" 99 asked with a perplexed frown of her delicate eyebrows.

"They decided it wasn't cost effective." The Chief shrugged. "Plus tactically, hazmat suits are heavy, cumbersome and limits a soldier's combat ability. Which is why they decided to focus on an antidote instead."

"That's right Chief. That's the reason the military wasn't too concerned about _Super Sleep_ falling into enemy hands. There was an antidote, right Chief?" Max inquired.

"That's correct. A chemical compound delivered intravenously, that can revive a person affected by _Super Sleep_ and confer immunity to it's effects for about an hour, thus enabling our inoculated soldiers to continue fighting and operations without the encumbrance of hazmat suits." The Chief shrugged. "That's why the military isn't concerned because it would be useless against any of our troops who are issued the antidote. And KAOS only got the formula for the tranquilizer gas, not the antidote, which the army claims is too complex to synthesize."

"But you said the KAOS agents in the robbery WORE anti-chemical suits along with their masks Chief." Max pointed out.

"Which proves two things." The Chief declared putting up 2 fingers and counted each item off. "One, KAOS does not HAVE the antidote, and two, the KAOS' scientists are exceedingly brilliant. They have managed to develop hazmat suits which are capable of stopping Super Sleep. Something which the U.S Chemical Corps thought was impossible."

"But the antidote isn't available to civilians or law enforcement." 99 realized.

"Which is why KAOS has found a most lucrative use for it!" the Chief declared shaking his hands for emphasis. "With this tranquilizer agent, KAOS could incapacitate huge numbers of police officers, even special weapons units and anyone else that stands in their way, enabling them to overcome a superior force with minimal manpower!"

Max squinted and leaned forward, turning his head slightly to cast a sideways glance at the Chief.

"I DON'T suppose the army is open to SHARING?"

The Chief shook his balding head gravely clasping his hands as he rested them on his desk

"I'm afraid not Eighty-Six. It's still classified top secret. They've forbade me from warning the police about it, especially since Project Super Sleep is only phase one of their plan for the tranquilizing gas and they're working on phase TWO right now."

"Helping people with insomnia?" this from 86.

"No Max." the Chief shook his head tiredly. "Phase Two modification of _Super Sleep_ to increase it's tranquilizing radius in non-enclosed environments coupled with a suitable delivery system. Most likely via missiles or bombs."

"If we can't warn the police or get the antidote for them, then we need to find and stop KAOS fast." 99 declared. "Any leads Chief?"

"Wait. What about that…that KAOS agent who ran their shortwave radio station?" Max said closing his eyes to try to remember. "What…what did he call himself? The…the…the Oberführer! That's it! And he said his name was…was um…"

"Hendrik Streckenbach von Graf!" 99 said shaking a fist. "He…"

"Ninety-Nine, if you don't MIND?!" Max snapped "How is a man supposed to remember ANY-thing with you always shouting out the answer?!"

"Sorry Max." 99 smiled tilting her head forward.

"Thank you." Max scowled before blurting out. "Hendrik Streckenbach von Graf! That's it Chief!"

"Yes Max, I remember too." The Chief nodded tiredly. "I remember both your reports. He claimed to be a member of the Reich's Main Security office's foreign intelligence wing."

"That's right Chief! Has CONTROL found out anything about him?"

"Was everything he told us true?" 99 added leaning forward slightly with a hand on the desk.

"Unfortunately," the Chief spread his hands, palms to the ceiling. "his name doesn't appear in ANY of the Reich's records that were seized or salvaged by our military and intelligence services after the war. But with so much of the records destroyed by the Nazis themselves prior to their defeat, there is no way to confirm or deny anything he says. So either he is lying or he's really as GOOD as he claims and managed to erase himself from the records to prevent detection."

"Could he be the KAOS agent in charge of these robberies?" 99 wondered

"Well," the Chief frowned in concentration. "Whether his claims of his World War two exploits are true or not, the complexities and planning of these robberies does match the ingenuity of the smuggling ring that he ran along with the shortwave station. The network disappeared without a trace long before we could get our agents on site. I'm afraid it's a possibility."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that Chief. We found im once, we'll do it again." Max assured.

"I hope so Max." the Chief agreed as he stood up from his desk. "And putting aside von Graf for now, I'm glad to say we do have some leads. Max would you get the screen and the projector?"

"Right Chief." Max nodded and headed over to the left corner of the southern wall opposite the Chief's desk while their superior moved with 99 over to the opposite corner.

At the corner on the eastern wall, Max lifted a painting off the wall and reversed it to reveal a white screen on the back of the frame. Hanging the frame again, he unhooked the fire extinguisher from it's bracket in the corner and walked along the southern wall past the sliding door towards the other end.

At the other corner, the Chief awaited with 99 next to an L-Shaped below hip level cabinet where a green lamp stood on the cabinet top at the crook of the 'L'. Max approached, holding the extinguisher by it's red pistol grip. The fire extinguisher's large cone shaped nozzle was at the end of a hard L-shaped metal pipe attached to the extinguisher's valve next to the pistol grip. The Chief nodded reaching for the fire extinguisher with 99 standing behind him.

The moment the Chief took hold of the device, Max being helpful, twisted the nozzle's pipe on it's swivel to swing up the nozzle. The Chief's head snapped back as the nozzle struck him under his chin with a resounding smack, staggering him. As Max's eyes popped with shock, 99 caught hold of the Chief steadying him.

The Chief blinked vigorously holding his chin with his jaw dropped in shock before glaring at Max.

"Sorry bout that Chief." Was Max's response

"Give me that!" the Chief scowled yanking the fire extinguisher away from 86.

The Chief laid the fire extinguisher on top of a stack of 3 thick books to achieve the appropriate height with it's pistol grip facing up and he properly angled the L-shaped pipe so the nozzle was pointing forward, aimed at the eastern wall. Max took up position at the Chief's left shoulder while 99 stood to the left of her fellow agent with her hip effortlessly pushed out to the side and her head leaning towards his shoulder.

Still rubbing his chin slightly, the Chief held the pistol grip of the fire extinguisher in preparation as he spoke.

"As I said earlier. KAOS had an advance team in place at the Cramley prior to the execution of the robbery. Witnesses confirmed a woman in a black veil among the guests inside the diamond fair and this same woman shot the guards at the entrance. We believe it is a KAOS agent that first came to our attention a few months back."

The Chief clicked the trigger on the extinguisher's pistol grip and the muzzle of the cone shaped nozzle lit up like a flash light. Immediately a picture was projected on the white screen on the back of the picture frame at the eastern wall.

Max and 99 gazed at the picture of what looked like a lush forest with it's leaves in autumn red though there was a leaf-strewn road running through it. Among the trees they could see the lithe form of a woman from a side view, shrouded in a black shirt-dress and black stockings, her head and face covered by a matching draped turban and what appeared to be a veil of black cloth hanging down to encircle her face and back of her head.

She was frozen in mid-stride in the picture and walking with her was a tall man in his thirties with thick black hair and a blunt widow's peak in a black suit and tie. The man was on her right further from the camera but his face was turned to her, saying something while a cigarette holder with a lit cigarette was clasped between the index and middle finger of his right hand. The man's expression displayed unbridled confidence and arrogance but the woman's veiled face looked forward and while it seemed likely she was listening to him, it was evident she saw no need for even eye contact, looking every bit like a statue carved from ebony.

"Wait, the man in the photo. It's Christopher isn't it? A KAOS agent." 99 pointed at the man.

"Correct." The Chief nodded. "Our first sighting of her, taken two years ago in Herăstrău Park in Bucharest. The park is a popular meeting place for KAOS agents."

"Hometown KAOS!" Max declared.

"Yes." The Chief said his voice turning graver. "This was taken by Agent Seventeen, who at the time was part of our surveillance groups stationed in Romania, tasked with identifying KAOS agents and their accomplices. Naturally, a new KAOS agent was of some interest to us and in-accordance with protocol, Seventeen was instructed to follow her. Upon leaving the park, she apparently went to the airport and for the next four days, we followed her to, first—"

The Chief clicks the trigger on the fire extinguisher projector to change the slide and depict a picture in day time where the same woman, now dressed in a form fitting white skirt suit but still with the black veil pinned to her white draped turban was standing in some kind of park again, looking up at an impressive statue of a gray Kingly figure holding a downward pointing sword in one hand in holding up a large crucifix in the other, mounted on a tall pedestal of white stone.

There were other people around the monument admiring it but closest to the woman was a tall man in a brown leather trench coat, matching fedora, dark glasses and neat dark brown hair. He stood just behind her, to her right, apparently focused only on the monument but clearly was communicating surreptitiously with her.

"—Moldova. Seventeen followed her here to the Ştefan cel Mare Central Park at the monument of the same name." the Chief pointed his finger at the man next to the veiled woman. 'This next picture put us on the alert cause' the man she is obviously meeting there is Eric Kruger—one of KAOS' top agents. We knew then that KAOS had to be planning something major. So doing a switch I assigned Seventeen to tail Kruger while agent Thirty-two in Chişinău took up the tail on the woman. Thirty-two followed her as she flew next to—"

Squeezing the trigger of the extinguisher again, changed the projection to show a beautiful white building with pale brick foundations and a tower extending out of it's main section with a crucifix atop it's spire and another wing extending from the side topped with a dome and it's own crucifix tipped spire. At the main entrance, they could see the woman, now wearing a beige coat dress with a white cartwheel hat which held the veil around her face from within the lining of the crown, approaching the entrance.

"—Slovenia." The Chief continued. "Thirty-two followed her to Brezje and here she is entering the Basilica of the Virgin Mary."

"Did we ever get a shot of her without the veil?" Max inquired.

"I'm afraid not." Was the Chief's disappointed answer. "Even while clearing customs at airports, she somehow always manages to stay out of alignment of our cameras when she lifted her veil. And her movements were limited to countries behind the Iron Curtain which further limits our surveillance assets."

The Chief switched to the next slide which showed the interior of the church and the woman was being ushered into a confessional by a stocky built priest with dark hair and slightly pudgy face. He explained.

"The priest here was identified as a KAOS team leader named Schnell."

"No WON-der KAOS is never short of bad guys who wanna sign up!" Max exclaimed with astonished, popping eyes. "They even guarantee their agents a clear CONSCIENCE for all the badness they do! Our union can barely guarantee us paid sick leave when we get shot!"

As 99 exhaled with a lopsided smile, rolling her eyes sideways towards Max, the Chief grimaced as he explained.

"Schnell is NOT a real priest at all and he's NOT listening to her CONFESSION! We think he was giving her the next piece of her instructions for whatever KAOS was planning!"

"Did Thirty-two find out?" 99 asked.

"I'm afraid not." The Chief shook his balding head. "Thirty-two managed to sneak up to the confessional after Schnell got in and planted a listening device. But KAOS had taken precautions and had some kind of electronic jamming in place. Thirty-two couldn't hear a thing! So when they finished, I ordered Thirty-two to follow Schnell while agent Thirty in Slovenia picked up the trail of the veiled woman. Her next stop was Hungary—"

The light in the nozzle of the extinguisher blinked on and off to display another picture on the white screen, this time at night of a beautifully lit building of neo-Renaissance and Baroque design. A crowd was entering the building and the Chief clicked to a close of shot of the people in evening wear. The woman could just barely be seen, in a formal black evening gown with long black gloves covering her arms and her veil, extending again from a silk draped turban down extended to cover even her shoulders making her look again like a shadow flickering among the crowd and the had to strain so as not to lose sight of her.

"—agent Thirty followed her as she checked in at the Boscolo Budapest Hotel and her next stop that evening was attending a performance of _Prince Pikkó and Jutka Perzsi_ here at the Hungarian State Opera House."

The slide switched to a shot inside the opera house's auditorium where the performance was in progress and agent Thirty had somehow managed to secure himself a box seat on the opposite side of the auditorium from where the woman was herself in a box seat with three men. They appeared to be strangers to her but of course, the Chief revealed this was not so as he pointed to the man seated behind the woman. He was in his early 50ties, hair graying at the edges and heavy set with a broad face and rounded chin.

"I'm sure you recognize him."

"It's Natz!" Max exclaimed squinting slightly. "But we sent him to prison!"

"That's right. A ten year sentence which ended about seven months ago and he's back with KAOS." The Chief nodded.

Max pouted with an approving nod.

"That's nice of KAOS. Most companies never give their employees a second chance after a felony conviction and imprisonment."

"They didn't speak throughout the entire opera except at this moment—" The Chief continued.

A change of the slide shows the woman on her feet with her back to the camera and Natz, still seated, smiling politely and handing her a cigarette case and what appeared to be her purse while the other two men looked on distracted from the performance.

"Agent Thirty reported her dropping her purse while heading towards the ladies." The Chief explained. "And Natz quickly picked it up along with it's spilled contents for her."

"He must have substituted one of the items as he handed it back to her or slipped a message inside somehow." 99 declared.

"Most definitely." The Chief nodded with a heavy expression as he continued gesticulating slightly in frustration with his left hand as he did in frustration. "After the opera, agent Thirty followed her back to her hotel and made sure she was in her room while he waited for Agent Thirty-five to take over. But when Thirty-Five got to the hotel, Thirty was nowhere to be found! We sent agents to discreetly search the hotel and surroundings but there was no trace of him! And what's more, though the woman never checked out according to the hotel's records, we never saw her again! The 'Do-Not-Disturb' sign was on her door since that night and I finally took the chance and had one of our agents disguised as a chambermaid sneak in. All she found were the woman's luggage. Nothing at all to indicate what KAOS was up to or where she'd gone."

"What about Kruger and Schnell?" Max asked pulling his cigarette case from his inside pocket of his jacket.

The Chief sighed heavily lifting both hands in dismay.

"Three days after Ştefan cel Mare Central Park, Kruger ambushed Seventeen in Sîngera. Seventeen barely made it out alive with a bullet in the arm and Kruger escaped. Schnell gave Thirty-two the slip twenty-four hours after the church. And SIX days after the opera, THIS!"

The Chief punctuated his frustration by switching the slides and 99 immediately gasped, cupping her soft lips with a slender hand. The slide showed a man about 6 foot in height with square shoulders and lean form clothed in a ragged, water logged suit lying face down on the grassy bank of some form of water body. The ugly wound on the back of his neck was apparent.

"Agent Thirty?!" 99 asked to which the Chief nodded.

"Guess Thirty-five should da' checked the hotel pool." Max grimaced asked as he tapped a cigarette on the case. "After all being a secret agent is high stress and we all gadda learn da relax a little while we're on the job."

"Max he's dead!" 99 exclaimed

"Well it's his own fault if he went swimming right after he ate." Max returned with a shrug.

"Max he was murdered!" the Chief exclaimed gesticulating at the projection. "That's Thirty, washed up on the bank of the river Danube in Romania! He was stabbed in the back of the neck!"

"Oh." Max arched his eyebrows. "Well stress is probably not his biggest problem then."

"The veiled woman killed him?" 99 inquired

The Chief squinted his eyes as he focused and replied.

"Our coroner said he was stabbed between the C-Four and C-Five vertebrae. The murder weapon was likely a knife with a blade at least nine inches in length, two inches wide with a symmetrical spear point. And the angle of the wound suggested the killer was about her height. She likely caught him by surprise from behind, as there were no defensive wounds on agent Thirty. While it's possible for a woman to do this, it would require exceptional precision."

"So we never found out what KAOS' was planning?"

The Chief's bald head looked even heavier as he shook it again and elaborated with raised hands, palms up.

"Not definitively. But two days before agent Thirty's body was discovered, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Caronia was assassinated."

"Doesn't Caronia supply our military with a crucial mineral for our X2 project?" 99 queried.

"Correct." The Chief confirmed. "The Prime Minister and the reigning King Charles VIII have maintained good ties with our country ensuring the steady supply of the mineral. But the King's health is ailing and he may have less than a year or two before he passes. His heir is Prince Charles who we are confident would follow in his father's footsteps of good diplomatic relations with us. But now with the Prime Minister dead, Prince Charles' half-brother Prince Basil has become the new Prime Minister. And Basil we know HATES the United States. With him as Prime Minister, he would be in a significant position to disrupt Caronia's good relations with the States. And worse, if anything were to happen to Prince Charles after his father passes, then Basil would inherit the crown! We suspect Basil hired KAOS to assassinate the Prime Minister as a first step in a plan for him to eventually kill Charles and take the throne, after which he would give the mineral to our enemies! Which leads us back to the veiled woman. The Prime Minister was assassinated in his own residence by a woman disguised as a servant. She stabbed him with some kind of poisoned spike, likely disguised as a hairpin or a barrette and killed two of his bodyguards as well!"

"Did they get a description Chief?" asked Max as he lit his cigarette.

"Afraid not. She managed to get in and out without anyone noticing her. But it's too much of a coincidence, the veiled woman being sighted in the region just before the assassination."

"Max, are you thinking what I'm thinking?" 99 asked turning to 86.

"The Danube not a big draw for water sports?" Max inquired.

"No Max!" 99 shook her head, causing her soft shoulder length hair to fly in a dark brown swirl. "That KAOS agent Maritta! Remember her?"

"Oh I'll never forget her!" 86 rolled his eyes, putting a hand to the back of his neck. "And neither will MY C-Four and C-Five!"

"The knife she used!" 99 pointed out.

The Chief shook a finger at 99.

"That's right! I remember your report. Ninety-Nine, you said she was using a Kampfmesser Forty-Two. It certainly would fit the description of the wound on Thirty."

"But Maritta wasn't as tall as the veiled woman." Max said.

"No, but she was working directly for this Von Graf." The Chief deduced. "And as you've both said, he's a fanatic about all things related to the Nazi regime."

"He did seem to miss the good ol' days with Hitler." Max nodded vigorously in agreement.

"So maybe he makes all his underlings use weapons from that era, including this veiled woman." The Chief thought. "This further implicates the Oberführer's involvement in these robberies."

"But Chief, since we don't know anything about the Oberführer, this doesn't get us any closer to the robbers." 99 stated.

"You're right Ninety-Nine." The Chief agreed turning back to the extinguisher and the projector screen. "But maybe some leads from the robberies themselves will help. Now aside from the veiled woman, we know other members of their advance team took out the guards in the C & C and destroyed all the CCTV recording equipment. Eyewitness accounts couldn't identify them. But after the robbery, the Cramley realized, two of their staff were missing. They provided the police with their personnel files and we have them here."

The Chief clicked the extinguisher trigger again to replace the tragic picture of agent Thirty with a slide featuring 2 pages from 2 different personnel records bearing the Cramley's letterhead, positioned side by side. Each page bore a driver's license sized photograph on the top right hand corner while their personal particulars were detailed on the rest of the page. The page on the left bore the photograph of the light blond waiter, his hair in a neat Ivy League cut while the other page had the photo of the waitress, her tawny hair falling past her shoulders with a patterned barrette holding it down neatly on her crown.

Max puffed on his cigarette twice before taking it from his lips as he read out the names.

"John Attenborough aaaaand—Sally Taylor?"

"Based on the hotel's files," the Chief said. "Attenborough joined the Cramley two months before the robbery and Taylor about four months so KAOS had been planning the robbery for some time. The police drew a dead end on them. No criminal records. The home addresses they gave the Cramley were apartments in Logan Circle and Potomac Heights. The police found both apartments, fully furnished but devoid of any clothing or personal items at all. The landlords confirmed the rent had been paid in full for six months in cash and neighbors said they've never even SEEN Attenborough or Taylor at all. Their social security numbers were fake but good enough to allow all the necessary transactions by the hotel including their pay checks. But a detailed background check by the police and FBI revealed no such persons as John Attenborough or Sally Taylor."

"Chief do you think KAOS allows them da keep the money they earned as part of undercover work." Max offered.

"I don't know MAX!" the Chief exclaimed "Why does that matter?!"

"Well maybe if CONTROL allowed us da keep OUR undercover pay checks, the Guild of Surviving CONTROL Agents would go easier on you at the next labor contract negotiations about making us stow away instead of returning tourist class after we're kidnapped by enemy agents and taken to a foreign country."

"Max!" the Chief shook his hands in frustration. "You KNOW the tight budget we're operating under!"

"MORE reason da let us keep our undercover job pay checks!" Max pointed out gesturing with his cigarette.

As the Chief growled and reached for Max's throat, 99 hoping to save both men's lives asked.

"Were WE able to find anything on them Chief?"

Her voice calmed the Chief sufficiently to avoid an aneurysm and burst of violence on 86 to enable him to turn back to the extinguisher and continue the briefing.

"We ran their pictures through our Automatic Comparison File and instantly, we had a positive ID. Both were confirmed KAOS agents. First, the waiter. He's actually—"

The Chief changed the slide to show a picture of the waiter, now dressed in a dark suit and brown turtle neck, seated at a table in a lavish restaurant. He sat cross legged and relaxed in the chair with an air of control and confidence smoking a cigarette and speaking to the other man seated at the table who was dressed in a black suit and tie, with thick dark brown hair and a beard which showed patches of white.

"—Gerd Vollmar, aged thirty-three. This was taken in March, in Le Mans by agent Seventy-Seven who was undercover as a Maitre'D. Vollmar is seen here with KAOS agent Otto Cronin. We were hoping they would lead us to the leader of their data smuggling ring operating out of Le Mans to Rennes, Caen and Le Havre. But Vollmar made our agents. They both disappeared and the network went to ground."

The Chief changed the slides to one of a family portrait with the father in a Nazi uniform and wearing a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross at the throat and the mother in a formal looking dark skirt suit and flowered hat and what appeared to be a ten year old Gerd in a school uniform standing before them with both parent's hands on his shoulders.

"Vollmar himself was born and raised in Dresden. His family had a proud military tradition with all the men serving in the German military. During the Second World War, Vollmar's father was a Sturmbannführer or Major in the Waffen SS. Towards the end of 1944, with Germany's defeat imminent, twelve year old Vollmar was then visiting his uncle and aunt in Ingolstadt, Bavaria where he remained following the end of the war."

A slide change now showed a slightly older Gerd posing for a photo with his uncle who was also in a Nazi uniform with a Knight's Cross as well. His aunt was wrapped in an overcoat while the Bavarian Alps rose majestically in the background.

"His uncle as you can see was also an officer in the Waffen SS. A Captain. Fortunately for Vollmar, Bavaria fell under the control of the United states when the Allies occupied Germany while his parents were trapped in Dresden under the control of the Soviets which later became part of East Germany. He would only be reunited with his parents sixteen years later when they managed to escape to West Germany and sought asylum."

"That's nice." Max nodded while 99 narrowed her eyes at him with a lopsided smile.

"Not quite, as you'll soon find out." The Chief said. "Vollmar's uncle was imprisoned for about ten years for war crimes so his aunt raised him and raised him well. He became an outstanding student and footballer, even playing on the national team at one time.—"

A click of the trigger switch presented a picture of a group of young men in muddied football attire on a field, posing for a photograph, all grinning or cheering victoriously with the smiling 18-19 year old Gerd among them, holding the ball above his muddied light blond head.

"—Because of his grades and well placed family roots," the Chief continued. "he was one of the select few to be accepted into the University of Bonn in it's early years following the end of the war and he graduated summa cum laude—"

The next slide showed Gerd, likely at 21 yrs of age, in a photograph with a small group of fellow students, likely the rest of the top 1-5% of each class, all of them dressed in graduation gowns and caps, clutching their scrolls and all looking elated.

"—and a few years later—"

The Chief again clicked the trigger switch and the extinguisher nozzle blinked and flashed a new slide on the screen, showing a page from a military dossier. The chest level photograph on it showed Gerd in a uniform consisting of a light-weight gray ski blouse over a white shirt with black tie and a gray cap with a gold edelweiß on the left side. Gerd's hair was cropped in a brush cut and his face, though still young, was now angular and hard as a statue with the blue eyes beneath the brim of the hat glinting with focus.

"—Vollmar upheld the family tradition and enlisted in the Bundeswehr as an officer cadet. This is why we know so much about him. His military record was expectedly, outstanding and he was a rapidly rising star, first in the Heer's Gebirgsdivision where he attained the rank of Hauptmann or Captain—"

The Chief clicked through a few slides that showed Gerd during various military deployments in artic and desert conditions, usually in mountainous regions, in either full white fatigues and parka or sand colored fatigues, with other soldiers, sometimes crouched in the sand or snow with their weapons, others on snowmobiles and others depicting him scaling mountains with his men.

"—and in 1962, due to his outstanding service record, combat proficiencies and experience, he became the first group of candidates handpicked for the Fernspählehrkompanie 200 or F-S-L-K 200, the Heer's then newly formed, elite, specialized deep reconnaissance company.—"

A click of the fire extinguisher's switch changed the slide to depict another page from Gerd's military dossier, this one again with Gerd in a military service uniform, this time a light blue shirt and black tie under a uniform light gray single-breasted coat with epaulettes and rank insignias on the lapels with a lanyard extending from the left shoulder sleeve. In-place of the Gebirgsdivision's distinctive gold edelweiß insignia gray cap, was a maroon beret bearing the flash or badge of the FSLK200, consisting of a green shield with a small parachute between the spread wing tips of a white and black eagle clutching what seemed like lightning bolts in it's talons, and under this, was the motto of the unit " _Oculus Exercitus"._ Gerd's face in this photo was even more angular and statue like and his crystal blue eyes under the beret's brim blazed with fierce intensity and ruthless intelligence.

"—He distinguished himself in numerous clandestine operations during the unit's infancy—"

The Chief clicked through a few slides showing Gerd in full combat gear, weaponry and fatigues, in more military deployments, this time mostly in deserts, forests, tropical jungles, almost always with different shades of camouflage paint obscuring his features, making his crystal blue eyes even more distinctive. The slides usually showed him with similarly garbed and armed men, crouched with their weapons aimed or Gerd giving instructions to the other soldiers, consulting maps during navigation etc.

"—His greatest achievement, came here—"

With a click, the slide changed to a tropical jungle scene again, with Gerd again in full combat gear crouched among some bushes, this time briefing not only a few of his men but also a larger group of soldiers with more rudimentary equipment, black skin and afros and fatigues that were more well worn and old. The Chief moved through 2-3 more slides featuring the same type of environment with Gerd and his men moving through the jungle but sometimes with one or two ebony skinned soldiers with them.

"Wait—" Max queried squinting at the slide while he held his cigarette in his fingers sending a think wisp of smoke towards the ceiling. "—Is…is that…Africa?"

"Correct." The Chief nodded pointing at the slide. "Congo-Léopoldville, Simba Rebellion, just last year."

99's eyes widened, throwing back the light in the office in dazzling blue reflection as she asked.

"The West Germans were involved? I thought only Belgium and OUR military intervened to aid Tshombe."

"And that's what the world still thinks." The Chief declared gesturing at the slide as he explained. "We only know this because of a classified report the West German Chancellor made available to us early this year in the interest of providing a more detailed profile of Gerd to aid in his arrest. As we know, the rebellion began in January 1964 and within a few months had amassed a rebel army numbering in the thousands. They captured city after city and at times entire battalions of the Congolese army would flee upon sight of the rebels without even a fight. By August they captured Stanleyville and with most of the North under their control the rebels were starting to march south and that's when Tshombe, newly appointed as Prime Minister took swift action by airlifting his former troops, exiled in Angola with our aid to Kasai Province to route the rebels near Luluabourg and the tide began to turn. But based on the report, that's only part of the account."

Pausing, the Chief switched the slides and this time, it depicted a conference room with several men seated at the table, mostly Africans while Gerd stood at the head of the conference table. He was dressed in clean fatigues with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows neatly and atop his blond buzz cut head sat the maroon beret with the lighting clutching, white and black eagle flash of the FSLK200 _._ Standing before a map of the Congo region with various pins and coloured markings on it mounted on a free standing board, Gerd was pointing at it with a metal pointer apparently giving some kind of briefing to the men at the table. There were 2-3 caucasians sitting at the table as well, sitting together on one side dressed similarly to Gerd and obviously part of his unit.

The Chief continued his explanation as Max and 99 studied this latest slide.

"It appears, at the beginning the rebels were progressing a great deal faster than what everyone generally knew. Tshombe could only gain the support from our military once he became Prime Minister and that only happened in July. But based on the estimates in the classified report, the rebels were moving much faster than what we know till now and would have overrun the south by April of 1964, long before Tshombe could marshal his forces. So Tshombe initiated a response as early as February while he was still exiled in Spain. Lacking the influence to reach out to us yet, he instead went—to West Germany.—" As Max and 99 looked to their Chief with increased curiosity, he continued with a shrug. "—Understandably, with nearly half their country under communist rule since the war, the West Germans were no more eager to see a Soviet controlled socialist state arise in central Africa, any more than we or Belgium were. But after a seven year uphill battle for rearmament against opposition from the Allies, the West Germans were wary of political ramifications from large scale offensive deployments of their troops, with the Bundeswehr being less than a decade old at the time. So they decided to aid with a small ten man team of F-S-L-K 200 operators, led by Vollmar."

"Chief, why does that guy look familiar?" Max asked pointing at one of the African's at the conference table.

They all focused on the man in question, sitting with his back straight at the end of the conference table, nearest to Gerd who was obviously making the presentation mostly for his benefit. The man's light gray suit and black tie did not hide his impressive shoulders and chest and clearly a greater height than even Gerd if he should stand. His face was a neat oval and above his wide thick lipped mouth and large nose were big stern eyes that seemed to take in every detail and missed nothing as he gazed up at Gerd and the map.

"Isn't…" 99 gaped, her soft lips parted. "…isn't that Tshome?!"

"Correct." The Chief declared shaking a finger at the slide. "Smuggled into Léopoldville where this was recorded as with the other pictures, by the West Germans. An urgent war room where Vollmar outlined his unit's plans to slow down the rebel advance and buy time for Tshombe to be appointed Prime Minister. And Vollmar and his F-S-L-K 200 did JUST that. For the next six months, he and his unit carried out ambushes and hit and run operations against rebel bases, outposts, supply routes and mass movements of rebel forces, out manoeuvring and out-witting the rebels on their native soil. They of course couldn't eliminate the rebel threat with just ten men but they caused such significant chaos that the rebellions progress slowed significantly. Most effective was what they did at night—"

The Chief clicked through a few more slides which made 99 gasp and close her deep blue eyes momentarily. Each of the slides showed 5-6 or nearly a dozen men, mostly in ragged civilian dress, lying on the jungle floor, most in hammocks or makeshift tents or beddings, weapons such as machetes, knives, spears and sometimes assault rifles near at hand but apparently unused. The men all displayed horrific deep slashes across their throats from ear to ear, their skin turned even darker by their blood while their clothing were stained red. Those whose eyes were opened for a split second before oblivion to see their killers remained staring at nothing.

"Ooooh my god!" 99 breathed out softly, shaking her head with her eyes closed for a moment.

"—At nightfall, when the rebels made camp in the jungles or in cities they controlled, Gerd and his men would sneak in and without harming any of the guards or sentries, moved through the camp or base, slitting the throats of as many rebels as they could. Their average kill rate was two-HUNDRED Fifty rebels a night. The rebels woke up in the morning and simply found dozens of their comrades dead. Which spread panic and fear among the untrained and ill-disciplined force. A favourite tactic of theirs was to kill rebels by the dozens in clusters but leaving one man unharmed in the middle to sleep peacefully till morning further elevating the panic, fear and superstitions of the rebels driving them to conclude they were being targeted by malevolent, supernatural forces—"

"A good night sleep is important in a rebellion." Max nodded approvingly with his eyes closed

"—When his team were interviewed after he joined KAOS—" the Chief continued with narrowed eyes as he pointed at the slide of the dead rebels. "—they all said that Vollmar issued a bet—if any of his men could beat his number of kills on ANY night, he would buy each man, a case of Schorschbräu Eisbock when they got back home. Needless to say—Vollmar did NOT have to make good on his bet."

As 99's large eyes widened into shock into splendorous pools of lavender, Max nodded with squinting beady eyes and pouting lips as he noted approvingly.

"A leader who knows how to motivate his men!"

"—They specifically targeted THESE individuals.—" the Chief continued, proudly noting to himself that he barely heard what Max said as he clicked to the next slide.

Max frowned at the next picture of another dead rebel, laying in the jungle undergrowth. But this man, older in his fifties was dressed more elaborately in animal pelts and an elaborate headgear that seemed carved in the shape of a lion with the animal's teeth bordering the man's forehead and jaw. Various other feathers and pelts adorned his ensemble and formed a skirt of sorts for a bottom. Most of the pelts and feathers over his chest were unnaturally red from his blood. Max with his highly trained powers of assessment proposed.

"Feather-duster salesmen?"

As 99 gave a lopsided smile, rolling her eyes sideways towards him, the Chief scowled.

"A SHAMAN Max!" prompting Max to give a silent _oh_ while the Chief continued. "The rebels were recruited in the thousand from a variety of backgrounds and political affiliations making it difficult for Soumialot and Gbenye to constrain them to a consistent ideology and goal. The Shamans served as a spiritual impetus and driving force for the rebels utilizing their disparate cultural and supernatural beliefs to motivate and unite them. They even provided the rebels with bottles of magic potions called _Dawa_ which the Shamans told the rebels would make them impervious to bullets."

"Now why are we wasting our money on bullet-proof shirts when we could just use THAT?!" Max exclaimed gesturing at the slide. "Windish and his lab boys must be sleeping on the job! Do you think Soumialot and Gbenye'll give it to us on wholesale? It'd be cheaper."

As 99 sighed and cast a sideways stare at Max, the Chief broke into convulsing gestures with is hands.

"It's FAKE, Max! The Dawa can't REALLY make a man bullet-proof! It's just a psychological tool the Shamans used to motivate the rebels into fanatical levels of disregard for their own safety!"

"Oh." Max blinked his beady black eyes before grimacing. "Then forget it Chief cause, nothing's more important to me than safety. Most importantly—my own."

The Chief let out a long breathe as he turned back towards the projection screen and continued with a tone so falsely calm it made an actual politician look like an amateur.

"As you can see, when they found a Shaman, they didn't cut his throat as they did with the other rebels. They simply shot him. Upon seeing their Shamans killed by bullets, the rebels naturally lost faith in the Dawa and the supernatural powers of the medicine men to protect them. This coupled with seeing dozens of their comrades dead around them when they woke up in the morning, led to desertions by the hundreds from the rebellion, thus slowing down their progress as Soumialot and Gbenye recruited replacements. And THAT'S why the rebels only reached Stanleyville by August, giving Tshome time to become Prime Minister and mobilize his exile troops."

The Chief switched the slide again and this next one featured an office of sorts likely on some military base with Gerd in it, now wearing his dress uniform of light gray, single-breasted coat and darker grey trousers, over a light blue shirt and black tie with maroon beret adorned by the distinctive Fernspählehrkompanie 200 flash. Gerd's gloved hand was held in a salute as he stood opposite an older officer in front of him who was returning his salute.

"With Tshome's force marshalled, Vollmar and his team were recalled to Germany in early September where for his outstanding performance in the Congo, he was promoted to Stabshauptmann or STAFF Captain."

The Chief clicked through a few more slides showing scenes of Africa again but these featured mostly streets and towns along with airfields. Gerd back in combat gear could be seen in the picture with Caucasian soldiers of other countries giving directions and briefings.

"Vollmar and his team however were called back briefly in late November to assist in Operation Dragon Rouge, the rescuing of American and European hostages held by the rebels.—" continued the Chief. "—Due to in-depth knowledge with the area from their earlier operation, Vollmar and his team took point as consultants and guides for the Belgian Paracommando Regiment. Despite that, when the paratroopers raided the Victoria Hotel, Vollmar alone killed nearly forty-five rebels himself—MUCH more than was necessary to get the hostages out. In fact, the Belgians later complained to his commanding officer, saying he actually jeopardized the mission and caused more civilian casualties then projected. But this was NOT the worse that happened upon his unit's return to Germany."

"He must have joined KAOS soon after this right, Chief?" 99 queried.

"Yes. It seems, there was something else he valued more than honor, tradition, patriotism and, well—killing." The Chief revealed gesturing at the slides.

"Repeating the Miracle of Bern at the next World Cup?" Max posited causing 99 to squint at him.

"Money." The Chief scowled at Max.

"Wise choice." 86 nodded as he inhaled on his cigarette before exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Seeing as how they haven't had much luck in the last two."

The Chief gritted his teeth as he turned back to the projection across the room, fighting back the nervous breakdown he knew was impending as he continued the briefing.

"An ongoing investigation by the Bundeskriminalamt revealed that Vollmar had been selling military secrets to the Soviets and East Germany. He also helped the Stasi locate and assassinate forty-three, high profile escaped dissidents for twenty-thousand dollars each, starting with—his own parents."

99 gasped, covering her soft lips in shock while Max pouted his lips and tilting his head approvingly, noted.

"A man who puts family FIRST."

The Chief shook his head as he sighed and replied.

"After Vollmar's return from Dragon Rogue, the Bundeskriminalamt finally had enough evidence and presented it to the Heer," the Chief explained "but when they tried to arrest him, Vollmar killed seven military police officers and escaped. We believe he joined KAOS almost immediately after that. Since then he's continued to evade capture by West German authorities, killing seven Bundeskriminalamt officers in the process. And if that's not enough.—"

The Chief switched the slides to reveal a scene comprising rows of small shops located near a seafront and a dock. The streets were packed with pedestrians and a click of the trigger switch again on the extinguisher brought up a close up shot of the dock and now Max and 99 saw among the crowd there, was again Gerd, this time wrapped in a dark trench-coat and his light blond hair, longer at this time was blowing in the strong wind from the sea. With a cigarette in his gloved fingers, he was speaking to a tough looking man in a black sailor's cap, dressed in baggy dark pants and heavy turtle neck sweater and overcoat.

"—This was taken in Karlskrona in April this year. That man with him is a KAOS agent, Kosovich.—"

The Chief switched the slide again and this time, the scene switched to the inside of a smoky pub or tavern where Gerd was now seated in a booth opposite Kosovich still talking. This time, there was a third man with them with neat dark hair, high forehead and distinguished chin, dressed in a tailored double breasted light gray suit and tie. While Kosovich and Gerd leaned forward, elbows on table listening intently, this third man leaned back in his seat, legs crossed and relaxed as he spoke while smoking a cigarette, clearly in charge.

"—This was taken just minutes after that last photo, at a small tavern nearby." The Chief continued as he shook a finger at this latest slide. "The third man is a high ranking KAOS agent we know as Belasco. Now with Belasco there, we believed KAOS was planning something big. Given the proximity of the Karlskrona naval base and the Swedish Coast Guard Headquarters, we believe they were planning to steal classified lists of military and coast guard vessels as well as patrol routes and deployment schedules in preparation for a piracy operation our intelligence indicated KAOS was planning in the Baltic Sea."

The Chief sighed and lifted his hands slightly in dismay as he unraveled the tale.

"We had agents Sixty-Three, Fifty-Five, Eighty-Eight, Sixty and Eighty-Five ready to move in on them the moment they made the attempt! Unfortunately, due to close ties with the Scandinavian governments, we were obliged to warn the Swedish navy and somehow the information leaked and the Bundesnachrichtendienst found out too! The West German Chancellor contacted the president and we had no choice but to allow FOUR of their agents to join in on the mission. The West Germans wanted Vollmar BADLY, readily apparent by their willingness to divulge their involvment in the Congo!"

Shaking his head in frustration, the Chief clicked over to the next slide which caused 99's soft lips to mouth an' _oh no'_ and her large warm eyes to widened.

The next slide featured a scene at night, taken at a dirt road that appeared to run along a high sloping stone wall with two wrecked cars in view. One car was completely over turned onto it's roof with it's front left wheel completely missing and a large section of the frame around that wheel housing reduced to a twisted, gnarled mass of black smoke belching metal. Broken glass from it's windshield and windows laid all over the dirt road around it. The other car had run up against the stone wall, partially tilting, it's entire front windshield shattered and both front tires flat. The doors of the cars were opened and there were bodies of three men in suits and trench coats around the car laying on it's roof while at the other car, a fourth man, similarly dressed was laying partially on the road with his legs still inside the car on the passenger side next to the driver's seat.

"Yep! That was bound da happen!" Max declared knowingly with one thumb hooked inside the pocket of his dim gray vest while his other hand gestured with his lit cigarette.

"When we take on missions with other agencies at the last minute?" 99 queried.

"No," Max gestured with a tilt of his chin. "Drinking and driving."

99 squinted and turned to stare at Max while the Chief closed his eyes as he shook his head asking something he knew he would regret.

"What are you TALKING about Max?!"

"See the thermos' on the road that fell out of both cars?" Max gestured with his smoking cigarette before making a drinking gesturing with his hand. "Seems our Bundesnachri…Bundoo…Bun-of-Nar…Bunnarnanny…eeeh…PALS from West Germany introduced our agents to some of their fine lager."

As the Chief began shaking in frustration, 99 tilted her head forward towards Max and rolling her eyes up imploringly at him suggested.

"Max. I think that's likely their coffee to keep them alert for the stake out."

"Suuuuure." Max nodded with a self-assured lopsided smile as he winks at 99. "That's what my Aunt Rose says when she prepares the thermos for one ef' Uncle Harry's fishing trips. Yet he's AL-ways happier when he gets back even though he never catches anything!"

"MAX! It IS COFFEE!" the Chief exploded, fists clenched and shaking as he turned on the offending agent causing Max to jump back, eyes wide in shock. "The men in the picture were all SHOT! Or did you think the bullet holes in them were miraculously caused by the accident and the blood all over their bodies and road were BEER stains?!"

Max leaned forward slightly to the Chief with his eyes squinting as he declared.

"Well a good agent never rules out the most SIMPLE explanations, whether they're right or WRONG!" he punctuates his question with a sharp nod but as he turns back to the slides, he frowns as he attempts to make sense of what he just said.

As the Chief appeared on the verge of convulsions, his lips curled into a snarl, 99 hoping to ensure both men's continued health pointed at the overturned vehicle's devastated frame.

"Chief. What did that?"

Her modulated, soothing voice appeared once again to bring the Chief back from the verge of a nervous breakdown and he breathed out slowly and turned back to face the direction of the projection screen on the back of the picture frame.

"Radio detonated land mine." The Chief replied and presses the button on the extinguisher a few times showing the scene from different angles as well as a photograph of a crater in the road about 8 feet in diameter where the mine had been planted. When they switched back to the scene of the two wrecked vehicles from an angle that showed the sea in the background, the Chief continued "They were staked out PER-fectly waiting for Belasco, Vollmar and Kosovich to strike at both the naval base and the coast guard's headquarters. But—the German agents moved too SOON! They were too eager to get their hands on Vollmar and the KAOS agents were tipped off, leading to a high speed chase! Vollmar led them down this road where he had OB-viously prepared a contingency plan in case of pursuit. According to agent Sixty-Three, Joe Froebus, the KAOS agents stopped their vehicle with a hundred meter lead and Vollmar pointed the remote out the window at them and triggered the mine, flipping the Germans' car. You can see the result. The other vehicle with our agents were forced to by pass them by driving slightly up against the slope of the wall and that's when Vollmar shot out both their front tires with a sub-machine gun. He then killed the three Bundesnachrichtendienst agents you see around the overturned car as they crawled out the windows along with agent Fifty-Five you see at the other car."

"I remember this now." Max weighed in gesturing with his cigarette at the projection screen. "Agents Sixty and Eighty-Five were shot badly correct?" The Chief affirmed 86's input with a nod and Max continued turning to 99. "They were both in a coma for bout' four to five months. Eighty-Five woke up first. It'll take more than a few bullets or knives da stop him for good! I know for a FACT, he's tough as nails!"

"You've seen him wounded on missions before?" 99 inquired as her large eyes caught the ceiling lights and glittered curiously.

"No," Max explained. "I shot two nine-inch nails into his foot with a nail gun while I was helping him build a shelf for his apartment. And he was back to work in just TWO days!"

As 99's large eyes widened in disbelief while Max turned back un-phased to the projection, the Chief pushed on hoping to salvage his blood pressure.

"The fourth German agent survived with a broken femur and ankle while Eighty-Eighty and Froebus escaped with flesh wounds and a few fractures."

"I remember that too." Max again pointed out tilting his head towards the Chief. "Joe broke both his elbows. Doctor had to wire the joints and put his arms in these huge casts." 86 lifted up both his arms out to the side, bending his elbows and pointing his forearms forward in a demonstration of poor Joe's situation at the time and waggled side to side to emphasize his point. "He was walking round the office like THIS!"

99 frowned slightly at Max's cartoonish impression of his friend's injury before asking

"Chief, did we at least managed to stop KAOS from getting the fleet deployments and patrol routes?"

"Yes," The Chief replied but shook his head in dismay again. "but the fallout from our failure to capture Vollmar, Belasco and Kosovich was TERRIBLE!"

"I'll say." Max nodded and put up his bent arms to his side to demonstrate his point again. "Joe was a walking HAZARD for MONTHS!—" He switched to rubbing his throat before continuing. "—CLOTHES-lined me EVERY—time I passed im in the corridors! I was starting to wonder whether he was on our side!"

As 99 gave a lop sided smirk and rolled her eyes sideways towards Max, the Chief staring ahead at the projections screen uttered.

"I-KNOW the feeling!"

"He hit you too Chief?" 86 asked.

The Chief turned scowling at Max with an obvious answer before turning back to the briefing.

"Lets just get on with this. We've had no sightings of Vollmar since then! As we expected, BOTH the Swedes AND the Germans weren't too pleased with us on what they deem as OUR mess! Not to mention the president!"

"I'm so sorry Chief." 99 offered a compassionate nod.

The Chief huffed out a breath as his shoulders sagged in his dark brown tweed sports jacket.

"It also doesn't bode well for CONTROL as an organisation!" The Chief shook a hand at the grim slide. "It's DEFINITELY going to affect our budget and our continued existence!"

"Then it's im-PERATIVE we get this done IM-MEDIATELY!" Max declared pointing an index from his cigarette wielding hand at the floor repeatedly to emphasize his point and the Chief gave a whole hearted nod of agreement.

"Locating the robbers AND Vollmar to emphasize the importance of CONTROL!" 99 joined in shaking a delicate fist to punctuate her point to which Max turned his head slightly to her and stated.

"More important than THAT! Getting ourselves a raise before the next budget cut!"

As 99 grimaced, rolling her eyes at Max again, the Chief closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose wishing for a faster and less painless demise with various options such as the Chinese 'death-by-a-thousand-cuts' torture technique looking very attractive at the moment.

Knowing his salvation would not be close, the Chief looked up again and pushed on clicking the button on the extinguisher as he said.

"Next the waitress from the Cramley."

The next slide showed a large store front in a city somewhere facing a busy street. The store windows featured various vases, urns and sculptures of various materials such as steel, ceramics, bronze, metal porcelain etc with more displayed within pedestals and displays inside the shop. The broad heavy wooden signboard over the door displayed the carved letterings in bold red which spelt out "ELMKIN'S ANTIQUES".

"We unfortunately don't have much on her. This was an antique store in Norwich taken about five months back." The Chief explained. "We were actually tracking THIS man."

The Chief changed the slides to show again the same store front but this time, there was a tall man dressed in a dark gray suit and tie and matching overcoat opening the front door. His neat hair was dark blond with short sideburns but inexplicably, his eyebrows seemed permanently arched and he was smiling widely. His smile gave everyone the sense that it was a permanent feature of his face even when he was not in a photograph.

"Chief!" 99 did a double take with her expressive eyes. "That man! The sign! It…It's Melnik isn't it?!"

"You're right Ninety-Nine!" Max confirmed squinting at the projection.

"The Smiling Killer." The Chief nodded. "One of KAOS' top executives. And correct, Ninety-Nine. If you rearrange the letters of the store's name it spells, MELNIK. He believes he can hide in plain sight because we can never get enough evidence to move on him. British CONTROL had him under surveillance in England for nearly eight months at that point. Commander Hathaway believed Melnik's antique store was a front for receiving and smuggling military secrets out of the country."

The Chief switched the slides and this time, the view zoomed in to the window of the store and they could see Melnik inside now, removing his coat and he was helped by none other than the waitress from the Cramley who stood behind him, dressed in a light brown skirt suit of cropped jacket and form fitting knee length skirt. Melnik was smiling as ever as he seemed to speak to her over his shoulder while she took his coat. The woman's tawny hair was pulled back into a ponytail, gathered near the top of her head and reached to her lower back. Her luscious lips were pulled back in a dazzling smile as she listened to Melnik, appearing to everyone as a happy employee greeting her boss.

"And there she is." The Chief announced gesturing with an open hand. "This was the first ever sighting we had of her and till now, the only one. She appeared to work in the store as a salesgirl, receptionist and secretary. British CONTROL of course suspected she was KAOS as well."

The Chief switched the slides and again this one was a close up shot of the window. This was likely taken on another day as the tawny haired woman now wore a red knee length straight cut sleeveless mini dress with a broad black stripe around the hips and an intersecting stripe down the middle from the collar. The dress revealed her formidable deltoid muscles and biceps as she gestured at a large bronze antique vase on one of the pedestals inside obviously presenting it to two potential buyers, a middle aged man and woman both dressed in tweeds.

"The couple posing as customers," the Chief pointed "are British CONTROL agents trying to get a close up reconnaissance of the store's interior. And that's how we came to know the only name we have for her. She introduced herself as—Kerstin. No last name. The female British agent had a micro-camera hidden in a button on her coat."

With this, the Chief switched to another slide and this one showed Kerstin from the angle of the female agent. Kerstin pointing with one palm now at the top of the vase apparently continuing with her explanation. It was a slightly angled side view due to the agent's position but it was enough to almost get a full length shot of Kerstin, featuring the sculpted bronzed muscles of her calves and the bulge of her steely bicep on her extended arm. The vertical black band on her dress followed the contours of her body, highlighting the sensual curve of her full breasts.

"Based solely on a visual approximation, she appears to be five nine, maybe twenty-two to twenty-five years of age." The Chief stated. "Her name and her features does indicate she's German. And that's all we know about her."

"Well if we have a closer shot of her at this angle," Max declared with half-lidded eyes, confident nod and a lopsided smile as he focuses closely on the photo of Kerstin. "I'm pretty sure I can get a LOT more information on her for our files."

As 99 grimaced with annoyance and turned to stare at 86, the Chief scowled.

"I THINK our files have sufficient information for now Max!"

"How about just for me?"

"MOVING ON!" the Chief announced as he clicks the slide switch button on the extinguisher. The next slide showed the same store front but this time, the windows and doors were missing, the walls on the inside and out were scorched black and the entire sidewalk and part of the road in front of the store was covered in glass and debris.

"What happened Chief?!" 99 exclaimed.

The Chief gestured again with a hand at the projection.

"From Commander Hathaway's report, after two weeks they managed to discover a hidden panel in the back room of the store that led to a secret basement where they believed Melnik was modifying the antiques to hide the military secrets he was smuggling. They moved in when Melnik was inside, hoping to catch him in the basement with the evidence. Three of the Commander's men went in the front and detained Kerstin who was alone while another five men entered through the back door, targeting the secret panel to breach it. Next thing they knew, the entire STORE blew UP! All the agents were killed!"

"Melnik and Kerstin?" Max asked.

The Chief shook his head and explained tiredly.

"No sign of their bodies. That's not all. When they finally sifted through the rubble and got to the basement, Commander Hathaway found that it was EMPTY! Somehow Melnik found OUT that British CONTROL was watching him and even KNEW that a raid was taking place that DAY! We STILL don't know how; either Melnik and Kerstin deduced they were under surveillance or KAOS has an inside man in BRITISH Control. In any case, a hidden passageway was found inside the basement leading to the store next door. Melnik probably emptied out the basement prior to the day and sneaked out before Commander Hathaway's men moved in. Kerstin was likely left as bait to lure them in and inflict losses on British CONTROL. It's JUST like Melnik to do this! They don't call him the Smiling Killer for nothing!"

"He won't be smiling for long in this case!" Max declared. "He'll soon face a wrath that will make even the most evil, rotten killers fall to their knees and beg for mercy!"

"The stern but fair justice dealt by the courts of law when British CONTROL catches up with him?" 99 asked.

"Worst!" Max declared pointing with his cigarette at the devastation on the slide. "Insurance exclusion clauses on 'Bombs-And-Booby-Traps-to-Cover-Escapes'."

The Chief again lowered his head, closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose praying for salvation and 99 stepped in again hoping to save him from a coronary.

"But Chief, how did Kerstin get out?"

The Chief breathed out slowly before raising his head and clicking the slide switch button. This time, the slide showed a blackened charred floor, obviously of the store's interior and a large opened trap door leading down into some kind of staircase.

"Trapdoor in the reception area under the rug which they didn't realize before." The Chief explained. "Leads down to the secret basement. Kerstin must have used it and then triggered the bomb via remote."

"How did she get past the British CONTROL agents?" Max asked.

The Chief pressed the switch again and two documents now appeared side by side on the screen with a few sentences highlighted. He pointed at the marked sentences as he explained.

"Commander Hathaway sent over the coroner reports on the agents who were killed. The three agents who went in through the front to detain Kerstin weren't killed by the explosion. Two of them were shot at close range with a nine millimeter pistol, likely with a silencer and the third had his throat slashed with a long bladed knife—from the front! They clearly underestimated her."

Max reached out and nudged the Chief's lapel with an extended finger from his cigarette holding hand.

"Which wouldn't have HAPPENED if they'd taken a closer look at Kerstin's photo like I said!"

99's soft brows arched into an annoyed frown as she grimaced at Max while the Chief simply shook his head and clicked the button again a final time and the light in the fire extinguisher nozzle blinked off. He set the device upright again on the books and turned to Max and 99 gesturing with his hands again as he spoke.

"Everything we have on Vollmar and Kerstin have been sent to your offices. The files from the police on the Cramley robberies should be here by now. Go over everything! Find the KAOS agents behind this robbery and recovery everything that was stolen. And quickly before they move on to their next target!"

"Right Chief." Max nodded.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER 5**

The 30 foot high arched iron-gate split open in two slowly via it's massive hinges set into the 20 feet stone blocks on either side serving as it's frame. Extending from the blocks was a stone wall, stretching in either directions far as the eye could see.

When the gates were opened, two men in black suits, sunglasses and fedoras, tiny in comparison to the portal, waved the waiting vehicle through.

In response, the Rolls-Royce Phantom V moved forward smoothly, it's V8 engine powerful but silent. The only sound that denoted the movement of the massive luxury vehicle was the crunch of the pea-gravel driveway beneath it's large tires. The sunlight bounced off it's black chasis in blinding flashes at the guards who had to turn away despite their sunglasses.

The Phantom V cruised along the driveway of the estate, with green turf stretching off to either side. Even after the gate was out of sight of the rear view mirror, it was another 2 to 3 minutes before the mansion came into view.

The building was 4 stories high, composed of brick, concrete and limestone. 3 chimneys each at least 15 feet high extended at different locations from it's red terra cotta tile roofs.

The mansion was already massive and imposing long before the vehicle reached it. The driveway began to curve as it approached the building. The Phantom V cruised effortlessly over the pea-gravel, impervious to the growing structure it approached. Finally, it arrived at the entrance of the mansion under the stone portico.

The Phantom V pulled to a silent stop and the driver in a chauffeur's uniform emerged from the car and closing the door, he stepped up to the passenger door on the driver's side, taking hold of the door handle in his black leather gloved hand and opening the door. A pair of lean black stockinged legs in black kitten heel shoes extended out of the vehicle and touched the gravel of the driveway almost without a sound.

The woman eased herself out with machine oiled smoothness. In contrast to her stockings, her skirt suit of cropped double breasted jacket and knee length pencil skirt were white with gold buttons on her jacket. Gloves of white kid leather covered her hands which held a white clutch. A white draped turban shrouded her head from which extended a contrasting veil of black satin which reached to her shoulders and chest.

SS-19 stood, her clutch in her gloved hands at her lap while the chauffeur closed the door and walked around to the other side to do the same for the other passenger. Despite the veil, she saw the 10 feet high front door of the mansion clearly, at the end of a short walkway leading from the gravel.

"Warten Sie hier." She heard the Oberführer instruct the chauffeur shortly before the passenger door closed again.

With a few crunch of the pea-gravel under the soles of his knee high jackboots that gleamed even more impressively then the body of the Phantom V, she felt the comforting warmth of the Oberführer on her left side. She saw the monocle over his right eye reflected the 10 foot high door of the mansion ahead of them with mirror like clarity for a moment before he turned to her making the reflection change to her veiled form.

His smile on his aged face under the distinctive widow's peak coupled with the intense glittering of calculating, manipulative intelligence in his exposed eye as always made her heart flutter slightly.

"Shall vee?" Von Graf invited.

The black leather of his tailored M43 tunic creaked softly as he crooked the elbow of his right arm slightly towards her. SS-19 reached out with her left hand to take hold of the Oberführer's elbow. The warmth of his body which permeated even the leather of his tunic and the glove of her hand caused excitement to push her fluttering heart into an increased drumming of excitement and SS-19 wished he could at the moment see the narrowing of her eyes and the smile forming on her lips. When the Oberführer's smile widened, she knew it did not matter that he could not see, for he knew.

They both turned and walked the 20 or so feet from the driveway to the imposing grand entrance of the door which was carved out of solid hard wood obtained from the Black Forest. When they were about 10 steps from the thresh hold, they heard the loud clack of a bolt and the door swung open.

The man in the black suit and tie complete with matching vest and tailcoat in place of a normal jacket looked just like a butler but he was more imposing than the door. As they stopped before him, SS-19 as always noted that at 6 ft 10", the man towered several inches over the Oberführer. SS-19 wondered how much of KAOS' budget went to simply tailoring his suits to accommodate his wide shoulders and deep chest. His hair was an even more distinctive yellow blond than Gerd's and they were combed straight back and gelled revealing a hairline as straight as the sides of the door. Both of them looked up at the man's cold serpent green eyes which glittered like emeralds as he gazed emotionlessly down at them, his expression further augmented by the stony cheekbones and sculpted flawless square jawline making him look like a statue carved from limestone.

SS-19 could feel her body responding as nature intended to the visual stimulus provided by the flawless Apollo like specimen before her. But even as her loins throbbed and her undergarment soaked her fluids, through unrelenting, conditioned mental compartmentalization, she effortlessly ignored her body's response, in favor of the steady drumming of her heart, fueled by the far more alluring excitement of the Oberführer's warmth and proximity.

"Guten Tag Wolfgang!" the Oberführer greeted.

SS-19 was always amused and glad at the constant false cheer in the Oberführer's tone whenever they were here, given who awaited beyond it's doors. If the blond giant was aware of Von Graf's condescension, he gave no sign and his stony face remained expressionless as he simply turned his broad body to allow them to pass.

As Wolfgang closed the door slowly, SS-19 gave the great hall they now stood in a passing gaze more to confirm and assess structural design and entrances rather than admiration. The area was indeed grand, measuring 40 ft by 40 ft by 40 ft with floor of polished white marble. From where the stood, they could see the railings of the second floor corridor. The hall had 5 entrances, 4 of them matching the size of the front door, leading from it, one each on the east and west walls covered with plush red drapes while the northern wall held the remaining three. The center entrance was even larger than the front door at nearly 20 feet high, framed on either side by Corinthian Pilasters that reached all the way up to the ceiling nearly 30 feet over their heads. From the center door, the main staircase rested leading to the second floor.

Without a word or even a gesture, Wolfgang walked past them and headed for the red carpeted main staircase expecting them to follow. He led them up the staircase to the second floor and then along the corridor to the right. At the end of the corridor in the east wall was a more normal sized entrance but SS-19 knew the space beyond it was anything but modest. Even as they approached the entrance, they could hear shouts and yells coming from it accompanied by familiar audible dull thumps and knocks all of which were accompanied by some piece of fast paced classical music. Just before they passed through behind Wolfgang's broad back, and the shouts and thumpings became even louder, SS-19 recognized the music as Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77.

An expansive hall awaited them beyond, slightly smaller than the great hall. The northern wall was to their left and 2 French windows adorned the southern wall to their right leading to a balcony that overlooked the estate. More pilasters of the Corinthian style decorated the eastern wall which they faced.

Wolfgang walked off to the right without even bothering to tell them where to wait there but both the Oberführer and SS-19 knew for in the centre of the hall was the source of the shouts and loud thumps. Both of them walked up to the large red practice mat there on the marble floor. The mat measured about 20 feet by 20 feet and at the moment, there were two figures on it, dressed in karategi, twirling and lashing out with feet and fists at each other as Brahms' violin concerto continued to blast from large horn speakers installed in all 4 corners of the hall at the ceiling providing a concert hall like sound quality.

Von Graf and SS-19 stopped just 10 feet from the edge of the mat to wait. One of the combatants on the mat was a man about 5 feet 10 inches in height, his karategi black in color while his opponent was a figure a full 6 feet in height, slightly lighter in build, dressed in a scarlet karategi but still secured by a black belt like her opponent. Their faces were obscured by black padded headgear and light boxing gloves adorned their hands although in-addition, the man in black's upper body was protected by a hogu while his opponent was not. SS-19 noted another 2 men dressed similarly in black and equipped with the same sparring gear, kneeling at the northern and southern edge of the mat, sitting on their heels with their boxing gloved hands on their laps waiting and watching.

The figure in the scarlet karategi now ducked under a spinning outward crescent kick with the opponent yelling as he executed it. As the scarlet clad combatant straightened, the man in black charged forward boxing gloves lashing out, shouting with each punch he threw. Instead of blocking, the scarlet figure simply back pedaled and swung it's broad shouldered upper body side to side avoiding each punch. Even in the gender neutral martial arts uniforms, it was clear to any observers that the figure in the scarlet karategi was female as even the loose fitting uniform failed to obscure the prominent swells over her chest. SS-19 observed with silent chagrin through her veil via her peripheral vision, the genuine carnal driven smile on the Oberführer's lips and the reflection of scarlet on his monocle.

When the 6th punch whistled past the right side of the scarlet combatant's headgear, she suddenly spun, putting her back to her opponent and dropped with blinding speed onto a crouch on her right leg with her long left leg stretched out to her side. The man could not stop on time and ran right into the outstretched limp, tripping forward and landing painfully on his stomach. However, he was rolling onto his back and up on this feet within a second and charging again. The woman weaved to the right avoiding a right hand punch before ducking a left cross. The man followed up with a front kick to the ribs which slammed into the double boxing gloved block by the woman. Just as quickly he spun clockwise on his left heel, causing his heavy karategi to produce the distinctive flapping sound and his right leg thrusted out in a back kick only to have the woman twist aside and lean back, allowing the striking leg to shoot past her breasts as she grabbed the shin in the crook of her left arm and brought her right elbow down onto the back of the man's knee. The man yelled out in pain, his leg bending and the scarlet woman grabbed his knee and using both hands, flung his leg upwards, the force flipping the man forward off his feet into a somersault which ended with him landing flat on his back with a resounding crash punctuating a high note on the violin concerto.

As the fallen man slowly rolled off the mat in agony, the woman backed away, gesturing with her left glove and commanding.

"Sergey!"

The man kneeling at the northern edge bounced up onto his feet and without preamble charged onto the mat. He was taller than the first man, nearly the height of the Oberführer. Sergey ran at the scarlet lady and jumped at her lashing out with a right legged front kick which she pivoted out of the way, allowing him to sail past. As he landed and whirled about, the woman used her reach to lash out repeatedly with lighting fast right jabs while her left arm remained curled to her breast. Her right glove slammed into Sergey's headgear twice, bobbing his head back before he managed to bring his forearms up to withstand the continued onslaught. With her 5th right jab hitting Sergey's raised arms, she suddenly spun counterclockwise on her leading right foot's heel to bring her left leg swinging up in a high reverse roundhouse kick. Sergey just managed to duck and SS-19 could see his brown hair whipping with the force of the woman's flying foot. But as he straightened, the scarlet combatant's left foot came back again in a round kick that slammed across his ribs. As Sergey staggered, the woman kept her left leg up, bending it at the knee before lashing out again higher to smash her instep into the side of Sergey's headgear snapping his head to the side. As the Russian wobbled on his feet, the woman switched to her right leg and kicked him in the side of the left knee. Sergey's left leg buckled as he dropped onto that knee and before he could gather himself, the woman's right glove crashed down into his face dropping him onto his back.

"Sato!" the woman yelled next.

As Sergey slowly sat up holding his throbbing head, the third man sprang up and stepped calmly onto the mat. As the violin concerto reached an intense pitch, the woman and the Japanese KAOS agent face each other in combative stances before Sato yelled out charging first to lash out with a front kick. The woman blocked and backed away as another right legged front kick immediately followed with another yell from Sato, then a third which she again blocked with both gloves but instantly snapped her right forearm up to block the right handed back fist from her opponent. Sato's feet immediately switched positions in a flash, while his forearms were still locked with the woman's and his left foot swung up in a round kick. The woman had to pull her right hand free to block with both gloves, the impact of the kick producing a resounding thump that nearly drowned out the note of the violin's high pitched stroke. Dropping his left foot to the mat, Sato twirled on that heel to back kick with his right foot which the woman again blocked before ducking under the follow up right back fist. As she straightened, Sato's left foot whistled in a low roundhouse kick and she lifted her right leg to absorb the impact in the side of her bent before dropping her foot down before Sato could and leaning forward to deliver a right and left combination into his hogu staggering the Japanese. As Sato tried to recover, the woman's left leg swung up in a clockwise arc and the inside crescent of her foot slammed into the side of his headgear knocking him off his feet to slam down onto his side on the mat so loud the violin concerto was drowned out for a second.

As SS-19 continued to watch through her veil impassively, the scarlet woman walked to the center of the mat and lifted up both her arms yelling.

"Tous ensemble!"

All three of the woman's opponents now stepped onto the mat getting into combative stances facing her. Simply putting her right foot behind her and bend her knees slightly without raising her arms, the woman shouted again, which made SS-19 close her eyes for a second and let out a slow breath to dispel her impatience.

"Adesso!"

All three of the men yelled and charged at the same time. The woman met them head on running forward at them at full speed. But just as she came within range of their strikes, she dived to the mat, and rolled in a scarlet blur towards them, her body horizontal. Sergey in the center tripped against her rolling body and fell heavily onto his chest with a painful _oof_ along with Sato on the left whose feet were disabled by her rolling shoulders but the 3rd man, her first opponent managed to dive over her rolling form and shoulder roll expertly to his feet.

The woman now on her back swung her long legs up to her breasts, using the momentum to roll herself back over her shoulders back onto her feet and charged at the first man. He managed to slow her charge with a front kick which she blocked allowing him to lash out with a few right and left combination punches. The woman blocked them with blinding speed on her forearms before catching grabbing his slashing right wrist in her right gloved hand and clamping her left hand onto his right shoulder before kicking the back of his right knee. The man dropped onto his knee, his upper body pushed forward by the pressure of the hand on his shoulder.

Keeping him in this position, the woman turned her head to see a recovered Sato charging at her. She lashed back with her right foot and the Japanese's hogu over his ribs ran right into it. He doubled over staggering back in agony as Sergey now recovered charged towards them. Before he could reach them, the woman released the first man's shoulder but he could not get up as she swung up her right leg and hooked it over his shoulder, while keeping hold of his right hand before snapping her right leg straight to smash her instep into his face, snapping his head back.

As the first man dropped onto the map clutching his face, Sergey managed to kick at the woman's waist. She blocked and ducked a right cross before lunging up to lash out with a right back fist. However, her strike landed against Sergey's forearm, giving him time to grab her wrist and hand with both his gloves and twisted her bent arm to her right. The woman's feet was yanked off the mat with the force of the throw. However, she thrusted her long legs up into the air as she was upside down, spreading them apart to gain her balance as her left arm reached down to plant her glove onto the floor momentarily in a one handed handstand to execute a cartwheel facing in von Graf and SS-19's direction, even as Sergey held onto her wrist.

SS-19's lips tightened against each other and fury burned in her neck as she saw in her peripheral vision, the Oberführer's wide smile and she knew it aimed not at the woman's skill but at the globes of her breasts that dropped towards her chin when she was upside down for a split second, and for a moment, pale slices of the mounds of flesh were visible, nearly popping out from her karategi.

The woman cartwheeled on one hand back onto her feet, her breasts bouncing beneath her scarlet karategi as she stood up to grab at Sergey's hand on her's and reversed the momentum, turning his arm and sending him cartwheeling off the mat instead to crash back down. At that moment, a recovered Sato charged in to lash out with a vicious front kick. The woman twisted her body and as the foot shot past her ribs, she grabbed the shin and kicked out low with her right foot before swinging it back to hit Sato's other ankle with her heel, knocking out his remaining foot. The Japanese landed on his back with his other leg still in the woman's clutches and her right foot stomped down onto his ribs, the agony convulsing him on the mat like a dying animal.

As the scarlet woman stepped back, bouncing on the balls of her feet to the rising tempo of the violin concerto, while Sato and the first man continued rolling about in pain on the mat, Sergey approached again, gloves raised. The Russian stepped in cautiously before lashing out a front kick which the woman brought her arms down for only to realize it was a feint and he stepped in, fists darting in devastative right and left crosses which the woman back pedaled swiftly swaying her body left and right and letting the gloved fists shoot past her padded ears. Sergey followed up with a high left roundhouse kick. Instead of blocking, the woman turned her body to face the incoming kick, risking it hitting her face and lashed out with her left foot and Sergey's swinging thigh crashed into her heel. Sergey yelled out doubling over to clutch his numb leg. The woman stepped in grabbing the back of Sergey's bent head and brought her left knee up into the side of his headgear with 2 resounding thumps. As the impact straightened Sergey against his will, the woman's left round house kick struck the side of his head staggering him again before she followed up with a right and left cross sending him reeling back. As the violin concerto's string portion reached a feverish pitch and pace, the woman spun clockwise on her left heel, tilting her body as her right leg swept up and her heel slammed across Sergey's padded head again this time dropping the Russian with a meaty smack onto the mat where he remained and the concerto struck a mass cord.

With all three of her opponents writhing in pain on the mat, the woman finally signaled again with a glove and Wolfgang who had been standing by the eastern wall as silent and unmoving as the pilasters finally pushed aside a large panel to reveal a big reel to reel tape recorder. He pressed a switch and the large reels stopped cutting off the concerto abruptly.

As von Graf and SS-19 kept waiting, the woman with her back to them tossed her boxing gloves aside and pushed off the padded headgear to reveal hair that was pulled back into a tight bun.

"Wolfgang." The woman said as she tossed the headgear aside without care and with just as dismissive a wave of her hand at her sparring partners still struggling to get to their feet. "Tell KAOS Headquarters in Europe and Asia to send replacements for these."

Wolfgang who was now on the mat walking towards her with some form of long garment of black velour draped over one giant forearm and a pair of black ankle high sheep skin boots in his other hand, nodded to her before tilting his limestone chin upwards to indicate the visitors.

Finally, the Oberführer spoke and SS-19 reminded herself not to take his words at face value.

"Bonne après-midi, Marquise! Thank you for taking time to see us. Ve understand your time as KAOS' President of Intelligence Extraction und Torture are most limited."

The woman pulled a black ribbon from her hair, turning the bun into a reddish blonde cascade that swept down her back till the wavy tips reached her hips. Only then did she turn revealing a high forehead, oval shaped face with high cheekbones and a perfect nose. Her lips were luscious and seemed wet, the lower one thicker and fuller than the one above, both combining to beckon any man or women who were so inclined into her reach.

The Marquise walked towards them, her hips swaying smoothly in a complete dichotomy to the martial display she had just been engaging in.

"Zhe pleazure is always mine, Oberführer. I vould gladly make it ours if you have time to stay."

Von Graf smiled and bowed his head graciously as the Marquise reached them.

"If only I could Marquise. Vut unfortunately duty calls und vee haf much to do."

In response, the Marquise stopped before them, her rich brown eyes regarding von Graf.

"A pity." She said simply before pretending to realize it for the first time. "Oh, I see you are taking your pet for a walk as usual?"

SS-19's eyes narrowed behind her veil as the Marquise turned her head to her, purposely tilting her head down in an exaggerated manner to emphasize her superiority in height.

"Oh, dear child." The Marquise continued with exaggerated pity as her luscious lips pouted making SS-19 burn in her chest. "Vhat is the use of such a pretty face if you are always hiding it?"

With that, the Marquise reached a hand out to SS-19's veiled face in a seemingly gentle gesture. It was all SS-19 could do to restrain the violent tendencies raging inside her. She managed to keep her gloved hands on her clutch and just tilt her head away from the Marquise's offending hand.

The Marquise's hand remained outstretched for a moment, regarding the veiled young girl and it was the Oberführer who interceded.

"Might vee see zer progress of zer preparations? Vee are pressed for time."

The Marquise still looking at SS-19, smiled her full lips glistening in the light.

"Vell. I was going to freshen up und change in my room—vut you heard your master, Nineteen. Ve are in a hurry."

With that the Marquise turned back to von Graf, her hands yanking at the black obi around her waist, undoing the knot with one tug. The Marquise tossed the belt aside as she took hold of the scarlet karategi's lapels.

"Everything is on schedule Oberführer." And despite fully expecting what she was going to do next, SS-19's gloved hands tightened on her clutch, nearly warping the metal clasp as the Marquise flung open her karategi's jacket.

SS-19's lips pressed so hard together that they almost went numb as the caramel toned, melon sized globes of the Marquise's breasts thrusted forward with the movement of her arms in full glory and wobbling enticingly. Her left arm was still in contact with the Oberführer and she was even more furious when she felt him jerk slightly in response. SS-19 could see the Marquise's naked globes, reflected in his monocle and their .38 Special sized blood red nipples within their matching large areoles, visibly hardened before her eyes upon contact with the air.

The Marquise shrugged the karategi jacket off her wide shoulders purposely pushing them back and causing her large breasts to thrust upwards at Von Graf as she continued speaking.

"Zhis operation of yours has KAOS Headqvarters most excited." The Marquise continued as she tossed the jacket aside, her breasts heaving with her breathing and her abdominal muscles flexing visibly.

"Owver success thus far vould never be possible vithout your assistance Marquise." Von Graf declared inclining his head again graciously but all his poise could not hide from either of the women, the growing upward pointing tent at the crotch of his loose fitting flared hip breeches.

"I vill hold you to zhat my Oberführer." The Marquise inclined her strawberry blonde head and she paused, her brown eyes catching sight of the ornate cap of the black baton which Von Graf held as always gripped under his left arm and clutched in his left black leather gloved hand.

"Well." The Marquise noted looking up, her eyes looking straight into Von Graf's monocle confirming that they reflected her crimson nipples instead of her face. "It seems you've replaced the diamonds that you lost. Your Führer vould have been proud."

"Thanks to the effort of SS-19 here!" the Oberführer answered too eagerly.

The Marquise turned again to SS-19, this time the globes of her caramel toned breasts and the erected red nipples and large areoles wobbling along as well. SS-19 knew it was to further demonstrate other physical superiorities that the Marquise had over her.

"It's true what they say. Treat your pets well und zhey shower you vith rewards." The Marquise smiled condescendingly and SS-19 was glad the tall woman turned her back to them at that moment so she could let out a heavy breath of fury that fluttered her veil for the first time.

The Marquise walked up to Wolfgang who was standing as always like a statue at the edge of the mat, patiently waiting.

"Zhe next phase of your operation iz assured." The Marquise stated as she stood with her back to them, her hands busy at her front.

"Gut! Gut!" Von Graf nodded and SS-19 without turning her head could see his monocle reflecting the broad, toned caramel back of the Marquise. "I shall haf to veport to KAOS headqvarters very soon on our progress."

With the sensual sound of cotton canvas against silky skin, the Marquise's loose karategi trousers suddenly dropped, landing around her ankles in a scarlet heap. SS-19's eyes burned with fury as the Marquise purposely stepped slowly out of the garment, the stony hamstrings and quadriceps of her long caramel colored legs flexing sensually.

Despite her anger, SS-19 could not help but be impressed by the smooth, toned, rock hard latissimus dorsi and rhomboid major muscles of the Marquise's caramel colored back, topped by the ropes of her trapezius and deltoid muscles all of which flexed erotically as she purposely took the time to toss back her long strawberry blonde hair to ensure a good display for the Oberführer. But SS-19 did not need her peripheral vision to know that the Oberführer's eyes and mind were not focused on the physical conditioning of the Marquise and the truth would lie in his monocle which she knew would now be reflecting the sculpted caramel hillocks of the Marquise's buttocks and she wanted to see even less, the bucking tent in the front of his pants.

"On zhat aspect, owver leeder vill ve calling for you here for an update." The Marquise said over her shoulder.

"I buttock be ready by zhen…EH!…BETTER! BETTER be ready by zhen!" Von Graf said shaking his head slightly and putting a gloved finger to his monocle to prevent it from popping out as his eyes remained hopelessly locked on the spheres of the Marquise's buttock's and it's sensual, beckoning intergluteal cleft.

SS-19 managed to slow her heartbeat and bring her fury to heel before Wolfgang spread the velour garment revealing it to be some form of robe. With a sweep of his long arms, he brought it behind the Marquise, thankfully for SS-19, hiding her buttocks and nudity finally, and held it there while the Marquise slipped her arms into the sleeves and belted it to outline her curvaceous form before sweeping her reddish blonde locks free of the collar.

Wolfgang then walked towards a door in the northern wall as the Marquise slipped her feet into the ankle boots that he had placed on the floor before turning around and reaching out a hand out to Von Graf with a smile. SS-19 was none too pleased at how eagerly the Oberführer and the tent in the crotch of his trousers went to her with an eager smile on his face to take the proffered hand, leaving her to follow.

They followed Wolfgang through the door into a large library which had a fireplace and coffered ceiling. Luxurious antique armchairs were positioned around on a large Persian rug in the center. Wolfgang strode over to a shelf of books that lined the east wall. There the giant butler titled out several books on different shelves before pressing a particularly large volume to bring about a loud click from somewhere. Then the double door of one of the glass book cases built into the north wall opened by themselves and the shelves of books inside slid upwards to reveal a large space behind them.

Von Graf stepped up into the opening first before turning to help the Marquise who took his gloved hand and with a smile, lifted her right boot to step onto the elevated floor of the hollow, causing her robe to fall away and expose her bare powerful thigh. SS-19 stepped up to the elevator reaching up with her gloved hand to von Graf. But the Oberführer his back to her immediately with the Marquise to walk deeper into the space to face the wall inside without offering to help her into it. Sighing and dropping her hand, SS-19 she stepped up into the space, her pencil skirt barely hindering her while the Marquise called over her shoulder.

"Wolfgang. Be so good as to toss out the garbage back in the training room!"

The bookshelves within the bookcase slid back down and the glass doors closed. The titled and pressed books on the shelf in the east wall automatically returned to their original positions as Wolfgang walked towards the door to the training room.

The space they were in, descended down a shaft at a rate faster than normal elevators but none of the occupants showed any sign of discomfort. After several seconds, having gone far below the foundations of the mansion, the secret elevator car came to a stop. The wall that was the back of the space slid upwards to reveal an extensive, brightly lit chamber.

The space was rectangular in shape, the north and southern walls about 40 feet in length and the side walls about half of that. Various instruments, computers and control panels lined the walls. But the first thing that greeted visitors on the far northern wall was of course, the large plaque of the earth clutching vulture with it's wings spread and the word 'KAOS' spelt in red across it's chest from wing to wing. The vulture looked over the occupants of the room, seemingly alert for freeloaders in the room, just as menacingly as the smaller version on the Oberführer's red armband.

Several men and women in white lab coats milled about the chamber from control panel to computer display checking and noting down information on clipboards. The KAOS vulture also adorned their lab coats as a patch over their left breast. However, the main feature of the chamber was of course in it's centre.

There were 6 examination tables side by side, 4 of which were occupied by men. They were all dressed only in their undershirts and boxer shorts. Leather straps across their chests and around her arms and legs held them in place. All of them had some kind of black metal helmets on over their heads and secured in place by a chin strap. The helmet had large earphones that covered the men's ears and big circular pieces of metal extended from the front rim to cover the men's eyes. Wires trailed from the top of the helmet to a control panel in the northern wall below the sinister KAOS vulture.

The Marquise walks up to the first examination table. All the men on it were exhibiting various physical reactions. Some were trembling and shaking, others even trying to sit up against their restraints while another seemed to lie completely still, breathing evenly and peacefully.

"Here ve have one of my hobbies." The Marquise said with a sweep of her hand over the restrained subjects. "I thought you might like a preview while you are here."

"Please do." Von Graf said twirling his black baton in his left gloved hand, causing the diamonds on the ornate end caps and the silver Iron Crosses and Wehrmacht eagles on the ebony shaft flash with the light from the ceiling fluorescent panels while SS-19 took up her position again on his right.

"As you know," the Marquise began looking over the subjects. "KAOS has long been looking into vays of successfully brainvashing a subject to such an extent that he or she vould carry out any orders vithout quvestion—" she flicked her hand carelessly as she quoted examples. "—vee haf experimented vith brainvashing medications zhat vould cause a subject to carry out a preconditioned action, for example—assassination, sabotage or distraction upon hearing a particular trigger vord—hypnosis haz alzo been explored vith zhe same parameters, vut eizher vay, both are unpredictable und subjects are prone to accidental activation vhich vould expose zheir condition. Chemicals und drugs are also subject to detection during medical exams." Lifting a long finger for emphasis, the Marquise declared. "However, I haf developed a technique vhich vould render a subject our absolute slave! In front of others, he vould behave absolutely normal, but vhen activated by a trigger vord, he vill begin carrying out owver orzers vithout question und yet be able to adapt to situations as zhey unfold."

"Zhat iz brilliant!" Von Graf exclaimed. "How did you achieve this?"

The Marquise's full lips smiled, glistening and wet competing with the diamonds and silver on Von Graf's baton, before explaining.

"By reprogramming—the unconscious mind." She touched the head of the first subject who was now trembling on the table against his restraints. The man appeared to be in his early 50ties though much of his face was obscured by the helmet and discs over his eyes. His body was not in good condition with a sagging belly pushing at his undershirt and his boxers laying loose over his think legs with knobbly knees. "Some researchers believe it does not exist vut ve know better. The unconscious mind—the processes of the mind zhat are automatic and not subject to introspection or conscience. It iz vhat controls a person's behavior und iz driven by subliminal perceptions, habits, reflexes, repressed feelings und often—" the Marquise paused to turn and focus her half-lidded yes and wet smile at Von Graf before continuing. "—hidden phobias und desires."

SS-19 knew there was nothing hidden about the Oberführer's desire right now but she kept her emotions detached from the matter at hand as the Marquise continued.

"Zherefore, zer unconscious mind controls a person and he or she is helpless in it's clutches. Regardless of vhat any person does from day to day, zhat is largely actions controlled vy training und conditioning as vell as shaped by societal norms und expectations. It eez not zer true self. Zer true self, lies, in zer unconscious. So—" the Marquise touched a long finger to her temple "—control zer unconscious, und you control zer person. Program zer unconscious—und you CREATE zer person you desire for your purposes. How you may ask?"

The Marquise touches the metal visors over the subject's eyes followed by the headsets over his ears.

"Vy controlling the subject's visual und audio inputs, over time ve can alter zheir thought processes. The visors on zer helmets are continuously projecting ultraviolet vords und images to zer subjects, commanding zhem to obey me und altering zheir perceptions of who zhey are. Zer headphones broadcasts audio tones und messages tuned to alpha waves to help keep zhem relaxed along vith mu vaves to reprogram zheir voluntary motor controls as vell as gamma vaves to alter zheir conscious perception und lastly theta vaves to induce a hypnotic state vich augments zheir susceptibility to our reprogramming. Vunce, zer process is successful, zer subject vill obey my every command but yet able to carry on vith zheir daily routine thus escaping suspicions. Und if I am vight, vich I alvays am…"

The Marquise turned back to the first subject who has suddenly stopped trembling and wimpering to relax and breathe evenly, his large stomach expanding and contracting to a steady rhythm. She turned to a lab coated personnel at a control panel at the west wall. The bald man who held a clipboard was studying brain wave patterns on a number of screens on the panel and he turned to nod to the Marquise who turned back to her guests, her hazel eyes glittering with victory and intelligence.

"…ve have a demonstration veady. Zhis subject iz Daniel R Milson, aged fifty-two, a criminal defense lawyer from Saint Paul, Minnesota."

The Marquise waved a graceful hand without looking in the direction and two other scientists placed their clipboards on a table and came over immediately to begin unstrapping the Milson and removing his helmet while the bald scientist at the control panel flicked a few switches apparently switching off the power to the headgear.

Milson was revealed to be bald with less than a halo of gray and white hair around his head at the level of his ears and despite the ordeal he had been put through, SS-19 noted that his eyes seemed bright and rested. The moment he was free, he pushed himself up and swung himself off the table to stand looking about him with a bright smile.

The Marquise put her hands behind her which visibly pushed the impressive globes of her breasts forward in her robe as she spoke.

"Gut morning." She greeted him.

Daniel immediately nodded his head at her and replied in a cultured, well controlled tone.

"Good morning Marquise. It is a delight to see you after so long."

"Of course it is." The Marquise confirmed before turning to Von Graf and SS-19 again. "Notice zer dilated pupils as he responds to my flawless form. His basic reactions and mannerisms remains unchanged. His closest friends, relative und fellow vorkers vould never know zer difference. Zer programming has made him fully accept his capture, new identity and role even though his behavior appears completely normal."

The Marquise turns back to Milson and asked.

"Vhat is your name?"

"Daniel R Milson." The lawyer replied smiling formally and with a slight bow over his sagging belly. "Senior Partner of Colby, Milson and Addles with offices in Saint Paul, Duluth, Los Angeles, Baltimore and San Diego! We also offer pro-bono legal services—with optional lifetime payment schemes."

"He IZ a lawyer." Von Graf smirked with a tilt of his gray head.

"Vhat is your TRUE name?" the Marquise continued.

"I am truly—your Süßigkeiten Bär! Forever at your disposal, my glorious Marquise!" Milson bowed even lower again, his belly threatening to drag him over.

"Candy Bear?" Von Graf inquired.

"Ve pick zer most unusual and emasculating code name possible to ensure zheir true conversion." The Marquise explained. "For men, zhis is a useful indicator. And now for zer demonstration."

The Marquise signaled with her hand again as Milson placed his hands on his stomach asking.

"Uh…before we continue with this delightful visit, may I perhaps get a robe? I'm feeling somewhat of a draft in this secret underground laboratory."

"In a moment my Süßigkeiten Bär." The Marquise forestalled him with a wave of her other hand which seemed to placate Milson completely.

Von Graf and SS-19 watched as an automatic sliding door on the east wall moved aside and 2 broad shouldered, brutal looking guards in black with holstered pistols on utility belts and the KAOS symbol on the left breast of their shiny black leather jackets walked in dragging a third man in between them. The captive was dressed in a crumpled light blue suit and loosened crooked beige e with his sweat stained shirt hanging outside of his pants. He appeared to be in his 40ties, stocky in build at about 5ft 10 inches in height with brown hair and moustache. The guards dragged him over by his arms as his hands were apparently bound behind his back. SS-19 noted the black right eye and multiple bruises on his face.

While he looked exhausted, he still struggled as the guards stopped with him a few paces from the Marquise.

"Now he looks like he could use a couple days under the helmet?" Milson smiled, hands behind his back mimicking the Marquise as he looked cheerfully at the captive.

The captive then glared at the Marquise, and SS-19 recognized the conditioned but hopeless defiance in his eyes despite his situation.

"It's over Marquise!" the man spat, still struggling against the guards. "CONTROL knows about you! If you give up now, you MIGHT be able da make a deal for LIFE imprisonment if you—."

As he sp, the Marquise walked towards him, hands still behind her back and breasts reaching forward.

"—tell CONTROL whatever information you have on KAOS strongholds, experiments and employee exchange programs with THRUSH!" the man still pulled out the strength give a lopsided grin out of his battered dry lips at the sarcasm. "There's still time Marquise! Do the…"

He was cut off as the Marquise stopped before him and with the rest of her body unmoving as a sensual sculpture of Aphrodite, her long left leg swung up, flying free of her robe, in a flash of caramel toned calves and fearsome quadriceps, hamstrings and bulging adductores of her inner thigh to slam her black sheep skin boot into the man's midsection with a dull _whump_. SS-19 could just feel the Oberführer smiling at the bare thigh which the Marquise so obviously was displaying for his benefit even as she heard the snapping of a rib in the captured CONTROL agent.

The prisoner folded over and crumpled, remaining upright only because the guards held onto him. The Marquise turned and walked back to Milson as the captive gasped in agony, saying as she did.

"I did not give u permission to speak, und empty threats are more pathetic zhen you are."

Reaching Milson, she smiled and turned explaining.

"Zhis iz CONTROL Agent Fifty zhat ve collected for owver testing purposes two days ago. He vas trying to infiltrate one of owver counterfeiting fronts in New York, disguised as a travelling salesman. He offered a product with truly no hidden costs or risks to it's buyers and guaranteed to aid it's customers through the worst tribulations and trails of their life and he was truthful, sincere and completely trustvorthy."

"Vhat gave him avay zhen?" Von Graf inquired.

"He was pretending to sell insurance."

"Dummkopf!" Von Graf scoffed with his visible eye rolling.

The Marquise snapped her fingers and one of the KAOS guards drew his Walther P38 from his holster and handed it to her. SS-19's eyes narrowed behind her veil and her gloved hand reached inside her clutch to take hold of her silenced Luger P08 as the Marquise handed the weapon over to Milson.

"Kill him."

"As you command my glorious Marquise." Milson nodded taking the pistol from her and still smiling brightly, stepped around the end of the examination table that he had been strapped to just moments ago to face 50 who was still doubled in pain.

The guards grabbed the agent's shoulders and yanked him up. 50 barely had time to register what was happening before the P38 began thundering, cracking and jumping in Milson's hand with each shot. The CONTROL agent jerked and convulsed as each 9mm Parabellum slammed into his chest, ribs and solar plexus.

With the 4th round drilling his lung, 50's eyes rolled up and his head sagged back on lifeless muscles along with the rest of his body. The guards allowed him to drop to the floor in a heap and Milson turned back to face the Marquise with an ever present smile with the smoking gun at his side.

"With my conditioning, he has become ruthless, merciless, cold blooded and heartless." The Marquise gestured to the beaming Milson who turned his smile at the guest as well.

Von Graf squinted his eyes and adjusted his monocle as he queried.

"So? He EES a lawyer."

"Correct, which brings us to phase two of owver demonstration." The Marquise smiled confidently gesturing with a hand so that another scientist walks over and hands her a clipboard and pen which she turns towards Von Graf and SS-19 to show it's occupants in a theatrical manner before handing it to Milson who takes it in his free hand.

"Süßigkeiten Bär, how much do you have in your bank account?" she asks.

"Oh a very modest amount. I am but a servant of the downtrodden, bringing much legal knowledge and aid to the poor, less privileged masses." Milson declared proudly with his chin up even as the P38 in his hand continued to issue a continual wisp of smoke from it's muzzle. "A mere ten thousand or so dollars of my humble earnings and life savings."

"And in your equally humble SWISS bank account?"

"Seven point five million dollars." Milson declared just as proudly.

The Marquise handed him the clipboard stating.

"Here is your check for your Swiss account. You will donate the entire amount to the Red Cross."

Milson had put the P38 down on the examination table and was already writing furiously before the Marquise had finished talking. He signs with a flourish and hands the clipboard back to the Marquise who hands it over to von Graf.

Upon examining it, von Graf sticks out his lower lip and admits with a shrug.

"I'm convinced."

"Gut." The Marquise nodded, causing her reddish blonde hair to whisper over her broad shoulders before turning back to Milson. "Last demonstration. Süßigkeiten Bär. "

"Yes my Marquise!" Milson snapped.

"You have served your purpose to me. I have no further use for you." The Marquise said.

"It has been my greatest pleasure to be of service to you my Marquise!" Milson said and with that he turns, still smiling to face von Graf and SS-19, his hand sweeping the P38 off the table.

SS-19 almost pulls out her Luger when Milson raises the weapon again but then saw where it was going. The lawyer places the muzzle of the weapon against the side of his head and without flinching pulls the trigger. His smile never faded as the other side of his head explodes in a mass of hair, blood and brain matter.

Von Graf stares for a moment as Milson collapses to the floor near 50's corpse. He then looks up and smiles as the 2 guards begin dragging the bodies away.

"Eeeh…ve aren't veally going to give all hiz money to charity are vee?" asked the former RSHA officer.

"Don't worry," the Marquise sighs nonchalantly as she hands the clipboard with the signed check back to the scientist who brought it to her. "Zer spineless wurm gave us the account number. Vill haf zer Chameleon impersonate him at zer bank und transfer zhe money to vun of owver KAOS accounts bevore ve dispose of zhe body. Now, on to owver next subject."

The Marquise turns causing her robe to swirl around her long powerful legs and walks over to the man strapped to the second table. Unlike the lawyer, SS-19 gauged the man to be almost taller than the Oberführer. His chest was deep and his shoulders square and while his wrinkled arms and legs showed him to be probably the same age as Milson, their sturdiness pointed to a well-conditioned athlete at one time. With his helmet on, they could only make out his sharply pointed chin and a thick but neatly trimmed white moustache. After the scientist at the CONTROL panel switched off the subject's helmet, one of the scientists unstrapped and removed the helmet to reveal a high, lined forehead and pull of neatly combed white hair and matching eyebrows above limpid dark eyes. Stepping up to the table close to the subject's head, the Marquise commands.

"State your former name and your real name."

The man stared up at the ceiling without replying for a moment before his chin trembled and his white eyebrows arched then bent downwards before he yelled out jerking against his restraints.

"I..am…I AAAAAAM! Nooo! I will NEVER! I will NEVER give in!...I KNOW who I AAAAAM…!"

The Marquise sighed and signaled for the helmet to be placed back on. The man kept yelling and straining at the straps that held him, making the table shake under the violent movements. He only stopped when the helmet was strapped in place and switched back on. His struggles turned from violent to minute jerking and his deep chest rose and fell steadily.

Looking up at her guests with a careless shrug of her wide shoulders, the Marquise stated.

"As you can see, unfortunately while the benefits are outstanding, zhere are still draw backs. For vun, it takes a minimum of two veeks to ensure the process takes effect e even zhen as you can see, different subjects respond at different rates. No matter. Perhaps zer third subject vill prove more interessante. He..."

"Einen Moment bitte, my dear Marquise." Von Graf interrupted. "Vhile zhis haz been most educational, I am afraid ve haf more pressing matters at hand to confirm for our next phaze."

"Of course mon amour." The Marquise bowed her head graciously, causing locks of her reddish blonde hair to slide over her shoulders and caress the mounds of her robed breasts before she exended an arm to the northern wall behind her. "Da questa parte."

The Marquise led her guests to a wide double door at the northern wall and SS-19 knew the lady of the house was purposely swaying her wide strong hips and buttocks for the benefit of the Oberführer but was relieved to realize she was actually starting to find it childish now, rather than rage inducing.

The wide doors slide apart with a soft gush of air and they stepped into another large chamber beyond, larger than the one they had been in. This one had stark white walls and even more scientists. Rows of long tables lined the east and west walls every one topped with a variety of laboratory glassware of all sizes in the form of test tubes, Büchner funnels, boiling tubes, Soxhlet extractors, round bottom flasks, graduated cylinders, swan neck flasks, cold fingers and so on, some standing by themselves, others connected to each other in complex distillation, sublimation, extraction etc, containing or flowing liquids and gasses of every color.

The Marquise led the way past the rows of lab tables with their ongoing processes, waving her hand at them as she moved.

"As you can see, the production of _Super Sleep_ continues round the clock. There vill be more zhan enough by zer time you reach the final phase of your operation."

They stopped at a moving conveyor belt lined completely with what appeared to be silver gas cylinders stabilized as they moved along the conveyor by railings on either side. Each time the conveyor belt stopped, a line of large injectors lowered from the ceiling and attached themselves to the aperture of the cylinders and a high pressured hiss was heard as gas was pumped in. It took less than a second before the conveyor moved again, each time bringing 10 more empty cylinders.

"The new series of cylinders as scheduled." The Marquise gestured and a technician in a white rubber jumpsuit walks over to hand the Marquise a piece of device which she shows to von Graf.

The Oberführer peers at it before nodding to SS-19 who reaches out and takes it in her gloved hand to examine it closely.

"I have perfected, this new multipurpose valve vhich can be used on both current and new cylinders for your next phazes." The Marquise declared without looking at SS-19.

Von Graf looked at SS-19 as she examined the device till she turns her veil to him and nods.

"Gut!" Von Graf smiled to his veiled lieutenant. "Make final preparations."

A technician comes over and hands the Marquise a slip of paper which she takes without even looking his way. Upon glancing at it, she turns back to von Graf.

"A call from owver new leader for you."

"Uh yes!" the Oberführer says looking about causing reflections of the glassware and their colorful contents to speed by on his monocle. "Vhere…vhere do I take it?"

"Zer Büchner funnel e Florence flask phone." The Marquise gestured to the nearest table of laboratory glassware.

Striding over and keeping the baton gripped under his left arm, von Graf picked up a Büchner funnel filled with bubbling purple liquid and detached the hose from the glass tube and hose barb at it's neck. He held the hose bard at his chin to speak into it while he took hold of a large Florence flask by it's long neck and lifted it to his ear only to have SS-19 grab his forearm. Von Graf's eyes widened as the yellow liquid in it's round body slosh about and sizzled.

"Ugggh! Vhich vun ees eet?!" he exclaimed looking at the dozen or so identical flasks on the table and the Marquise herself started picking up two flasks at a time and shaking them to find the right one but SS-19 immediately lifted up one with what appeared to be a clear green fluid inside but which was obviously fake as it was solid and did not move about as she handed it over.

Von Graf grasped this one by the neck and was about to speak but stopped for a moment lowering both glassware to say to the two women.

"You know, ve veally must not copy EVERY—thing CONTROL invents! Last time I ended up vith an ear und tunic full of SCHWEIN urin!"

"I assure you Oberführer ve already had zer scientist responsible shot." The Marquise promised making Von Graf stopped again as he almost lifted up the glassware.

"Shot?! Zhat vas too kind! Ve should have made eem pay my LAUNDRY BILL instead!"

Sighing, von Graf finally put the Büchner funnel's hose barb to his lips while holding the Florence flask's spout to his ear and began speaking at times squinting and bowing his head slightly as she strained to listen.

"Hallo?...Jawohl!...Vhat?...Oh…sorry sir! Sir, I can barely hear you! Vhere…vhere are you...Iz…izzat _Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen_ I hear in zer background?!...Ja! Ja! It ees better now!...Jawohl! Everzing ees going precisely to plan sir. Vee are preparing for our next operation now…Jawohl! I understand Sir! I know zer final phase ees time sensitive Sir!...Nein! Nein Sir! Zer preparations for zer final phaze ees not veady yet. I promise you vee vill be on time to meet owver buyer's demands. Also, I believe it vould be most profitable to KAOS if vee carry out owver second last phaze. Vun cannot haf too much money you know! Jawohl! Proceeding as planned Sir! Danke mein Herr!"

With that, von Graf placed the Büchner funnel/Florence flask phone down and turned back to the Marquise.

"Vee must take owver leave now Marquise. Owver new Mr Big grows anxious!"

The Marquise nods in return before saying.

"I shall continue to keep you informed of our progress on your final phaze."

The Marquise's luscious wet lips spreads in a smile and adds the words and actions that made SS-19 truly desire to draw her Luger.

"My Oberführer. To me, YOU are the true—" she lowers her eyes down to the front of von Graf's trousers before lifting them up again to gaze into his face and monocle. "—Mister BIG."


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER 6**

"Max this is hopeless!" 99 exclaimed leaning her elbow on the long table and placing her face in her hand.

They were both in one of CONTROL's conference rooms. This one was used often to meet with high ranking military officers or the Joint Chiefs during a crisis and it could be used as a command and control centre evidenced by the red, beige and blue phones near the other end of the table from where they now sat. But surprisingly, the red phone was not the one by which the commander-in-chief was contacted but a black phone which was kept inside a locked black box just beyond the first 3 phones at the very head of the table. Perhaps attempting to match the tone of the situation which often accompanied meetings in this room, the dark wooden arm chairs in the room had red leather seats and backs. Even the southern wall mounted a large plaque to the left of the door which displayed a silver start over a large silver bald eagle in flight with bunches of silver arrows clutched in it's feet against a red velvet back ground.

Their individual desks had early on proven not up to the task of displaying and organizing the massive numbers of case files delivered by the police along with their own CONTROL files as well as information and evidence Professor Windish's lab team had gathered from armoured car robbery sites. As it was, more than half of the conference table were occupied with stacks of files, many laying opened.

99 and Max sat across from one another at one end of the table closest to the west wall of the rectangular conference room which had a low filing cabinet placed against it with an armchair at it's right end with a red leather back and seat and dark wooden legs and arms matching the rest of the chairs in the room. Another arm chair was set near this one against the northern wall. The top of the filing cabinet in addition to an ornament that held miniature flags of the major powers of the world as well as a model of some form of red and silver rocket at the end, now also held all the turquoise ash trays which they had cleared from the conference table to make space for their files. A large map of the entire United States was mounted on both the east and west walls along with 2 yellow wall lamps each.

Max sitting with his back to the long northern wall of the room, his dim gray sports jacket draped over the back of the arm chair on his left leaned back to stretch his arms up into the air causing his shoulder holster's leather to squeak a little as his shoulder muscles clicked and stretched.

"Now, now Ninety-Nine! Just because we've looked over every page, in every one of these forty or so files, five times in the last three hours without making headway is no reason da give up!"

99 lowered her hand and aimed her large blue eyes at him wondering if he was serious or another one of his verbal gaffs. Sighing, she leaned her head back bringing about clicks and clacks from her graceful neck as it flexed within the red and orange turtle-neck of her ultramarine dress. She took a moment to look around the elegant dark wood paneled walls of the conference room and the large potted plants in each corner of the conference room to clear her head before looking back at the big eared and nosed face of 86 which she still found alluring regardless.

"Max, every minute we waste, KAOS gets closer to their next target." 99 pointed out. "You've heard what the Chief said, with all the losses CONTROL has suffered during it's missions we really need to come through for him."

"We WILL Ninety-Nine! I'm positive!" Max assured.

"HOW Max?" 99 asked looking around at the dozens of files just immediately in front of her. "We've gone over the police witness statements, crime scene photos, the equipment KAOS used, all the information we have on Gerd, Kerstin and the veiled woman and nothing!"

"That's where you're wrong Ninety-Nine." Max said leaning forward to place his right elbow on the conference table edge and squinting at her via a sideways glance while gesturing at the files all over the table. "After looking at every scrap and page of every file we have here—I am now, on the verge of solving this en—TIRE case!"

"Really Max?!" 99's angelic face lit up.

"Absolutely!" Max declared pointing to this right eye and then his temple "Thanks to the EAGLE eye, flawless instincts and highly trained deductive reasoning of Maxwell SMART, together with a natural born detective mind—" Max raised his right index finger. "—I need only ONE more, teeny, tiny, eensy, weensy clue to crack this case WIDE open!"

"What's that Max?!"

"The names and addresses of every KAOS agent involved, location of their hideout and the date, time and location of their next heist!"

"Oh Max!" 99 groaned closing her eyes and leaning back against the red leather back of her armchair.

"I said it was teeny, tiny, eensy, weensy." Max pouted leaning back. "I didn't say it was easy da find!"

99 cast a side wide look at Max with a crooked smile as she reached for the files again.

"Let's just go through them again for another twenty minutes then we'll break for lunch okay?" She suggested.

"Good idea Ninety-Nine." Max reaching for a thick file. "Maybe a break and recharge is in order. Hampton's Fine Food has great bacon and eggs and validates parking for it's customers."

"For lunch Max?" 99 queried as she flipped through a file.

"No they validate at all hours long as you dine in." Max replied busy scanning his file causing 99 to pause before giving a lopsided smile at his failure to grasp her question again.

"Oh, I missed out this file." 99 reported as she flipped the pages.

"Which one's that?"

Flipping the pages a bit and reading it, 99 replied.

"It's the file on the owner of the news stand the KAOS agent used to stake out one of the armoured car routes." 99 proceeded to read from it. "Herbert R Shankmen, aged sixty three, divorced ten years. He ran the newsstand for almost fifteen years."

"I read that one Ninety-Nine." Max dismissed without looking up from his file. "Seemed he miraculously won an all-expense paid two week vacation to the Caribbean courtesy of "Red Line Travels". I double checked it with our files, it's a KAOS front. They've likely packed up and disappeared by now. Nice of KAOS da give Herbert a real vacation instead of tying him up or killing him. KAOS must know the pain of living with alimony payments."

"There's that…" 99 agreed, her eyes focusing on the page she was reading before her large eyes widened. "Max!"

"What?! Did they give Herb a follow up address?" Max straightening in his seat and looking up. "Cause I could use a two week all-expense paid vacation to the Caribbean too!"

"No Max!" 99 huffed in frustration before placing the file down and pointing at it. "This is Herb Shankmen's medical report. He was diagnosed with severe asthma three years ago!"

"He needs the Caribbean more than we thought." Max tilted his head in emphasis.

99 pushed aside the file and began shuffling about various other folders before pulling out a blue one. She flipped through the page and among the items inside was a small clear evidence bag the size of a pack of cigarettes stapled to one of the pages which she held while reading the attached report.

"Max," 99 said, urgency infused in her modulated tones. "Professor Windish's team found this on the floor inside the newsstand. I didn't' think anything of it before. It's a Cigar Ring."

"So?" Max shrugged.

"I thought it was left behind by the original owner but if Herb Shankmen had severe asthma he couldn't possibly smoke!" 99 declared. "It HAS to belong to the KAOS agent who posed as the newspaper vendor!"

"I don't see how that helps us." Max grimaced. "I mean, lot'ev people smoke. Cigars, cigarettes, pipes. It's one of the products that keeps our economy afloat. Glad KAOS is helping with that at least."

"Max, look at the cigar ring!" 99 said turning it to him.

86 peered at the logo on the paper loop which featured a coloured drawing of a girl on a balcony helping a boy who was trying to climb onto it and the wordings featured on it which 99 pointed out.

"It's a Romeo y Julieta brand!"

"The KAOS agent in the newsstand reads Shakespear?" Max frowned

"Noooo Max." 99 explained. "Romeo Y Julieta is a brand of premium cigar from CUBA!"

86 squinted shaking a finger at 99 as he focused his thoughts.

"Which is illegal here!" Max then grimaced tilting his head. "But Ninety-Nine if you're thinking of tracking the agent down through the cigar it would take forever! Almost any boat or ship that heads out to Cuba smuggles back a few boxes for profit. Or the KAOS man could have just gone to Cuba itself or any country where it's legal."

"You're right Max!" 99 her own index finger shaking pointedly as her eyes turned the yellow light from the wall lamps blue as they reflected from her iris. "Not the source of the cigar but our CONTROL files for each KAOS agent ALSO include their habits –you know things like favourite wines, hard liquor, opera, food, restaurants—to help us track them down or identify them."

"So if we ran the brand of the cigar through the Master Identification File, it could maybe help us find out if there are any KAOS agents who have a fondness for it! Let's bring the files we need and get to the lab!" Max's beady eyes glittered with this discovery.

Both stood up and began gathering the relevant folders they required and Max noted as he shrugged into his sports jacket, nodding confidently.

"You know Ninety-Nine! We should do ALL our research in this room!" he pauses, buttoning his jacket as he looked around the conference room. "I don't know what it is, but maybe the atmosphere and the symbols of the forces of good and niceness that's around us here—" he gestures at the red plaque with the silver eagle behind 99 and at the miniature flags sticking in their holder on the filing cabinet and the maps of the U.S on two of the walls. "—it just motivates me da come up with the best ideas no matter HOW tough the problem!"

"But Max," 99 said as she sorted through the files peering at their titles to ensure she got the right ones. "the last time you were in this room, you got the idea to place the entire military on a full mobilisation alert, cancelled thousands of leave, sent hundreds of planes into the air and woke up the highest ranking officers of the U.S military because a small band of native Americans pulled over a bus."

Leaning forward and drawing a circle with his index finger, Max provides his latest line of ultimate wisdom which caused 99 to sigh, shaking her head.

"Yes. But I wasn't IN this room yet when I got that idea."


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER 7**

"No! Eighty-Six, you are not getting anywhere near that Master Identification File until the criteria I have set in place for you is met!" Professor Windish declared, his bald pate shining with sweat as he stood with his back to the door leading to the room the machine was located inside.

99, hugging three files to her breasts, could just make out the machine inside the room through the glass panel in the door behind the professor as well as the larger panel in the wall immediately to the right of the door which divided the room beyond from the rest of the lab.

"WHAT criteria?!" Max fumed looking the pale scientist up and down. "I didn't hear about any new criteria?!"

"I put it in place last week and the Chief approved!" Windish nodded his shiny bald head to emphasise his resolve.

"What's the criteria professor?" 99's satiny tones enunciated which almost instantly seemed to calm the scientist.

But Windish still managed to squint at Max and reply with a sarcastic wobbling of his bald head.

"When his AGE matches his AGENT NUMBER!"

"This is riDIC-culous!" Max threw his arms up. "Why would the Chief agree to that?!"

"Because every time you go near that machine, CONTROL's repair bills sky rockets by eighty-thousand DOLLARS!" Windish exclaimed, his eyes wide with rage. "You, Eight-Six, are a clumsy, absent minded, walking-MENACE!"

"Wait a minute Windish!" Max places his hands on his hips as he squinted at the professor. "Just WHAT are you trying to say?"

"You will NOT get anywhere near that machine until I know for CERTAIN that it's SAFE!" Windish declared.

"And when will THAT be?!" Max demanded with a nod of his head.

The professor narrowed his bulging eyes as he leaned towards Max and snarled.

"Are you familiar with the term—'when-HELL-freezes-over'?"

"That's outrageous!" Max scoffed "You are paranoid professor! Name ONE time I caused ANY real harm in the last six months!"

"You broke four of my fingers—TODAY!" Windish yelled thrusting up his right hand in it's sling, up in front of 86's large nose, displaying the individual cylindrical metal casts that encased his index, middle, ring and little finger while the rest of his hand and the knuckles were wrapped in white bandages.

"But that's your hand!" Max smiled widely, pointedly tapping the cast on Windish's little finger before pointing over the professor's shoulder at the glass panel on the door behind him. "NOT the machine!"

"And this is ME—" Windish returned. "—saying—GET OUT!"

As Max and Windish continued to imitate two little kids fighting over a candy bar in the school yard, albeit very justifiable on the professor's part, 99 again, needing to save both men from killing each other and to get them hopefully closer to solving the case had to step in.

"Professor," 99 titled her head, as she spoke, her dark tresses flowing over her blue dress while her alluring subtle tones infused Windish. "We're really sorry about your hand. Max didn't mean it. But this is important! We promise we'll be careful. We really need the Master Identification File if we're to have any hope of getting a lead in this case."

As always, her voice was enough to soothe the most Max-Enraged scientist—or Chief and Windish visibly calmed down and his bald head even seem to visibly shrink slightly.

"Alright!" the professor said. "But Ninety-Nine, YOU and only YOU will touch the machine." He jabbed his left index finger at 86. "HE stays at least FIVE feet from it!"

"Now wait a second…" Max protested, eyes bulging.

"I promise Professor!" 99 smiled and tapped Max to quiet him before he said anything else.

Appeased temporarily, Windish blew out a breath as though he was getting ready to swim a stretch of artic water turned and led them into the room.

The Master Identification File was stationed against the west wall, right in line with the door and just a few steps in from it. It was about the height and depth of a large washing machine but twice the width but instead of white it was a dull gray in colour. The front face of the machine was affixed with a black rectangular panel larger than a shoe box on which was mounted 2 large silver tape reels with a smaller beige coloured box in between them and lower down, themselves fixed with 2 smaller tape reels. A section of the machine's top near the left side was raided and sported a black panel studded with numerous indicator lights in 8 neat rows and 10 columns.

Windish stepped up to the left side of the machine nearest the door reaching into his lab coat's pocket with his left hand but instantly whirled around to immediately find as he suspected, Max looking over his shoulder.

"Over THERE!" Windish commanded gesturing with his finger casts at a table at least 6 feet away from the front face of the machine.

Max snarled grumpily as he stomped over to the table followed by 99 with the files while Windish brought out a bunch of keys from his lab coat. Finding the right one with some difficulty due to his damaged right hand, he inserted it into a key hole in the left side of the machine and turned it with audible click. Windish then reached up to a silver steel box mounted overhead on the wall above the machine. On the face of the box were embossed the words:

Master

Identification

File

CONTROL

PANEL

The right side of this panel was a long silver lever with a black grip which Windish took hold of with his left hand and yanked down.

"There you go 99." Windish waved at the machine with his left hand. "I'll just need to pop over to the lab to get something. SMART! I'll be watching you!"

With this dire warning and a parting snarl, Windish walked out the door making Max grumble and raise a fist at his parting back.

"Here we go Max." 99 said walking up to the slot in the machine on the side where it's ignition key hole was with a white card in her hand on which was typed the brand of the cigar.

"I'll wait at the delivery slot." Max indicated walking up to a wide metal slot in the machine just to the right of the black panel in the front.

"SMART!" came the Professor's yell from the lab which made Max whirled about and brisk walked back to the table.

99 inserted the card she had into the data entry slot and there was a hum as the machine drew it in. Immediately, the panel of indicator lights on the machine's top began blinking and multi-tonal bleeping issued from it. Interspersed with the bleeps was a staccato rattling similar to a manual typewriter. 99 stepped over to the delivery slot and soon, card after card began emerging from the aperture into her delicate long fingered hands.

"Well? Anything?" Max asked eagerly trying to see the result on the cards.

99 finally turned and walked back to Max with several cards in her hands crammed full of information as well as a picture of the KAOS agent.

"We were right Max!" 99 reported brightly as they both read the cards. "The Master Identification File managed to find a dozen KAOS agents known to have a particular fondness for the Romeo y Julieta brand of Cuban cigars!"

"Let's see." Max shuffled through the cards putting aside the ones that were not plausible. "These five are dead so it's probably not them—" 99 smiled crookedly rolling her eyes sideways at Max as he continued oblivious. "—these three are in prison. This one, he's under surveillance by our agents overseas, last report came in just…half an hour before the armoured car robbery, placing him outside a museum in Antwerp...which leaves us these three—Ninety-Nine you have the witness statements from the police for the armoured car robbery?"

"Right here!" 99 said grabbing the file off the table and flipped through the contents before reading out. "Here's the description given for the KAOS agent posing as the news vendor. Uh...Caucasian, mid to late thirties, five-eleven, a hundred and sixty pounds—" Max tosses another card aside. "—light brown hair, narrow face with a square jaw."

99 looked up and found Max looking at 2 cards.

"That's it, we're down to these two sinister looking characters!" Max announced looking at the profiles he held in his hands. "Now, with my keen insight and deductive reasoning, I can say for certain that THIS—" Max snaps up his right hand and the card in it. "— is definitely NOT our man and he can be immediately eliminated as a suspect in the robberies! His skill sets are those of an assassin rather than an armed robber, the sinister beady eyes he has indicates a man who prefers to HUNT down his target and STRIKE when within range instead of waiting in an ambush AND—even though his physical description and facial features matches, my eagle eye—" Max points again to his eye "—detected the black roots along his hairline indicating his REAL hair color is black!"

"And also he's African and the descriptions from witnesses indicated the newspaper vendor was Caucasian." 99 noted.

Max turned his head to 99 with an annoyed grimace.

"I'm not FINISHED Ninety-Nine!"

"Sorry Max." 99 smiled inclining her head with her eyes rolled up at him.

"Plus!" Max 'continues' with a raised finger. "He's African and witnesses at the scene said the newspaper vendor was a Caucasian."

"Good THINKING Max!" 99 said closing her eyes with effort while Max smiles triumphantly.

"Okay, let's see who we've got here." 86 raised the remaining profile and read. "Stanislav Němec, thirty-seven, bornin Vrahovice, Czechoslovakia—nice to know even the not-so-free world has developed a cosmopolitan appreciation of fine cigars—recruited into KAOS five years ago. Prior to that, he was an eleven year veteran with the Sta…Staneet bezpoc…Stil…" Max squinted at the next two words. "…StaNOT bebby…Sta…StayNIT bad-nose…"

99 leaned over for a look, her hair brushing his shoulder and somehow sending an electrical tingling into him through the thick material which made Max grimaced in annoyance and incomprehension.

"Státní bezpečnost." 99 read before her large eyes looked up at Max with concern. "He's a bad one Max. That's the Czechoslovakian secret police."

"Says here he specializes in torture, interrogation, ad-VANCED torture, surveillance and forcing confessions." Max read on. "KAOS headhunted him when he was thrown out of the Sta…Stanitwit bedpost…bezzyby…uh...Czech secret police due to…" Max's eyes narrowed with disbelief at what he read next before turning to 99 and repeating it out loud. "…Excessive Brutality?"

While 99's big eyes widens in shock for a moment before blinking quickly to refocus herself and inquire as she peered back and forth between the profile card and a few other cards she had.

"Anything on how we can find him?"

"Well, he's got no known hideouts." Max noted reading on. "At least none he keeps for long. Wait! It says, the only thing he loves more than Romeo y Julieta cigars are beautiful women and he usually lives with them in their apartments. He's known to have amassed a long list of girlfriends, so he can stay on the move. What do we have on him on the other cards Ninety-Nine?"

99 shuffled through the 5 cards that she held before grimacing and glancing sideways at Max to announce.

"His long-list-of-girlfriends." She however refocuses, looking through the list. "It seems CONTROL had surveillance on them to keep track of Němec till we get enough evidence to bring him in. Anyway, based on this list, it appears he's already broken up with all these women."

"Nothing on who his current girl is?" Max inquired.

"No." 99 replied then held up the third card. "CONTROL does know who his LAST girlfriend was. A, Brenda J Covings. She owns a cafe on 18th street at Adams Morgan. Němec stopped seeing her about three months ago. What do you think Max? She might have an idea on how da find him. CONTROL hasn't attempted to contact her yet as there wasn't any pressing need."

"We're pressed now and if we don't move fast we're gonna be starched!" Max declared before they both frowned at what he said just as the door opened again and Professor Windish renters with some objects in his left hand, his right hand still resting in it's sling as he walks over to join them.

"Well, have you found what you need?"

"Oh yes Professor! Thank you so much!" 99 replied. "We're heading out right now in fact and the machine is still in perfect working order as promised."

"You are a god-sent Ninety-Nine!" Windish smiled for the first time that day before putting on his grumpy face again as he glares at 86. "HE'S from the OTHER place!"

Max rolled his eyes up at the ceiling and tosses a hand at the scientist.

"Anyway, long as you're here, I have your special equipment for you." Windish said placing the objects down on the table.

Max and 99 realized they comprised of a square black felt pouch about the size of a man's hand which were held via a zip that extended over 3 sides, a heavy new gold watch and a silver bracelet that seemed to be made from bluish beads.

Windish first picks up the felt pouch and pulls the zip to open it up revealing rows of what looked like miniature tubes of toothpastes in it each held in it's own pocket. Each was about 3 inches long including it's long plastic hooded head.

"The army's Chemical Corps just sent this over. It's the antidote for Super Sleep. You have a dozen syrettes here and that's all they were willing to provide us so use em judiciously." Windish advised.

"And it lasts an hour?" inquired Max

"That's right. It will also neutralize, revive and immunize anyone affected by the tranquilizer agent. I suggest you share these between the two of you." Windish said handing the pouch over to Max before picking up the bracelet. "Now this is CONTROL's latest anti-materiel weapon. Each of these beads you see here on this bracelet are actually glass pellets filled with a highly volatile acid. You just pluck it out, throw it, the glass shatters and the acid upon contact with air forms a corrosive gas that will instantly dissolve ANYthing made of metal—steel, iron, aluminum even reinforced titanium or tungsten but at the same time, is completely harmless to human tissue or anything else non-metallic."

"Amazing Professor!" Max declared taking the bracelet.

"Yes I am." Windish nodded picking up the watch.

"But Professor." Max said holding the bracelet to his jacket. "I don't think this goes with my suit do you have one in gray or maybe a heavy shade of beige?"

99 took a breath to explain but Windish grumpily snatched the bracelet from him and handed it over to her.

"THAT'S for Ninety-Nine!"

As Max mouths an 'oh', Windish thrust over the watch. "Here! Carleton WARNED me of your foot- stomping-fits so I've placed your pellets in this watch. You push the button and the watch face opens up to reveal a secret compartment."

"Thanks for everything Professor." 99 smiles as the Windish nods and steps aside to let them pass.

As 99 gathers up the files, Max stands before Windish and declares.

"Professor, you've been a great help. I know I sometimes tend da cause things da go bump in the day but I sincerely don't mean it. And I am sorry bout' your hand."

"I accept your apology Eighty-Six." Windish nods.

"You're a swell guy professor!" Max beamed with a sincere nod. "Put it there!"

Before 99 could shout a warning, Max grabs the Professor's bandaged hand with it's casted fingers as it laid in it's sling at chest level and shook it with a loud crunch.

"AAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!"

Windish's eyes popped as he hollered in agony yanking his hand free and reel backwards, his other arm swinging about for balance. Max could only bare his teeth in embarrassment as 99 rushes forward to grab the professor. But it was too late. Windish reels back towards the west wall and slams right into the Master Identification File with such force, the gray blocky machine shook and as he slides to the floor, his out stretched left arm slams down onto rows of buttons and switches. Instantly, the entire machine begins wobbling and spewing out a cacophony of multi-toned bleeps, toots and staccato rattlings while the indicator lights flashed in every colour visible to the human spectrum and probably some that were not. Smoke begin rising from the seams and cards spewed out in an endless stream from the delivery slot past Windish's bald head.

99 covered her mouth in dismay as she kneeled down next to the now sobbing professor.

As the machine continues screeching, bleeping, rattling and assailing with room with barrages upon barrages of cards, Max leans forward, squinting at the bawling scientist and declares with a punctuating nod of his head.

"Who's the clumsy menace—NOW?"


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER 8**

"I thought the IRS just mail legal warnings and threats till they get what they wanted. When did they start sending people down da TALK to us COMMONERS?" was Brenda J Covings' quizzical but pointed question.

Coving's Café like many other cafes and stores along 18th street in the Adams Morgan area, was located on the ground floor of one of the colourful 3-4 storey, 19th and early 20th century rowhouses that composed the majority of the neighbourhood. It's name was spelt out in attractive blue, yellow and green on it's awning out front. The interior had a seating capacity that rivalled many restaurants with booth seats lining both east and west walls of the dining area and a number of tables that sat 3 to 4 people occupying the rest of the floor. A C-shaped counter where the cashier was stationed, was built against the northern wall which separated the dining area from the kitchen.

Max and 99 thought it was better to be paying customers first since they were attempting to bother the owner during the lunch crowd and what's more, posing as employees of what 86 deemed to be the most hated, cold hearted and dangerous organisation in America aside from the CIA. Good thing too as Coving's Café appeared to be doing well despite the competition in this part of the city and the lunch crowd was doing a great job of crowding. Less than 5 tables were left unoccupied and even those were covered with empty plates and cups from satisfied customers. The 6 waitresses in the dining area were practically sweeping by back and forth never experiencing the luxury of ever holding simply one plate when serving. 99 realised location was only part of it as she ate her turkey salad, soup and bread. The food was indeed good and this was further substantiated by Max's verdict as he wolfed down his bacon and scrambled eggs with diced salami, so much so he didn't even mind that the café did not offer parking validation.

Due to this area being the centre of Washington's Hispanic community, it was not surprising that 5 of the 6 waitresses were Hispanos with a Chicano cashiere and the same mixture was noted among the 4 cooks which they could see rushing about in the kitchen through a delivery window in the north wall. They were also only partially surprised to realize the 29 year old Brenda J Covings was the one waitress among the 6 who was Caucasian. Despite being the owner, she had been moving through the dining area taking orders and serving with a speed and skill that rivalled her employees and calling out orders and updates to the cashier and the cooks in both Spanish and Portuguese.

The only thing that set her apart other than her ethnicity was her outfit composed of a simple white collared blouse and black A-line skirt instead of the signboard matching motif knee length uniform dresses of the other waitresses. Other than that, she wore the same uniform apron the other waitresses wore and it was just as stained and grease covered as theirs' were.

Regardless, 99 could not help but acknowledge that Němec did have a good eye for Brenda was a striking woman. Despite the oil stained apron and shirt and slightly sagging lower eye lids from stress and hard work, Brenda's hazel eyes sparkled with intelligence, like burning embers from above her even cheek bones, delicate jaw line and soft chin. Standing at 5 foot 8 inches, the apron did nothing to hide her petite form though to 99's usual chagrin, Brenda's eyes and intellect was unsurprisingly, not the object of Max's observation since they arrived.

99 smiled at Brenda's glittering hazel irises as the owner stood at their table with the back of her wrists resting on her svelte hips encased in her black skirt.

"Yes, it's a new initiative the department is trying out." 99 explained though she saw Brenda's hazel eyes narrowing somewhat suspiciously. "On a limited basis for exceptional cases. Isn't that right Max?—Max?—Max!"

"Huh! Wha..?!" Max's eyes and head snapped up from Brenda's hip and tight hemisphere of her buttock to level with 99's big annoyed eyes across the table. "Oh! Oh! Ahhh…yes! That's right!"

As Brenda turned to eye 86, the secret agent shifted in his seat, straightening himself as he tried to add on to his partner's explanation.

"Yes, you see, all that letter writing is SO cold and callous." Max rambled waving a careless hand. "We decided to try out a more PERSONAL approach with warmth and sincerity, to explain the situation to the taxpayer and allow him a chance to properly explain his position."

Brenda raised a quizzical ashen blonde eyebrow as she titled her head asking.

"Be—FORE, you seize everything he owns and toss him out on the streets."

"That's right!" Max declared thumping his right hand down on the table without looking and of course, hitting the edge of his coffee cup saucer with a loud ceramic cling and spring boarding the half-filled coffee cup into the air making 99 jerk back as it somersaulted and spilt it's steaming contents over his hand, making Max's eyes pop as looked down slowly at what he did.

As 99 looked about for a napkin, Brenda surprisingly, without taking her eyes off Max, pulls the dish-towel she had slung over one shoulder just as the other waitresses had and handed it to him as though this was an everyday occurrence.

"And WHY did you come to me if you were looking for Stanley?" Brenda asked as Max wiped his hand with the dish-cloth with an annoyed grimace on his face.

"Well, Mr Nelson…as you know him," 99 explained "left…"

"Brenda, las placas se están acabando. Julio necesita ayuda."

The source of the interruption was one of the waitresses who came up to Brenda and spoke, wiping away at the beads of sweat on her forehead as she did.

Brenda turned immediately upon hearing the waitress' voice.

"Sí." The owner nodded giving the waitress a familiar grateful rub on her arm. "Ve y ayuda."

The waitress nodded and hurried over to the diving wall, disappearing into the kitchen through a swinging door next to the counter

"Sorry, you were saying?" Brenda turned back to 99.

"Mr Nelson apparently put down your address for all tax related correspondences for the past few months." 99 continued smoothly.

"Of course the bum did." Brenda scoffed tilting her head back and lifts a hand from her hip as she continues. "It's what bums do! They tell you you're special, they never met anyone like you, you complete them, lah deee dah, then they move in with you, share your bed, eat your food, don't bother da PAY for anything from then onwards and after three months you come home one day and they've left a note saying _So long, trading up, it's been fun!_ Aaaaaand, on top of that, when the IRS comes after im, they throw YOU to the dogs! No offence."

"Oh don't worry. None taken." 99 declared raising her splayed hands reassuringly. "We know of course you're not involved and he was just using your address to misdirect our notices."

"Could I ask how much he owes the mighty IRS?" Brenda inquired. "A LOT I take it since you guys are…"

Brenda this time interrupted herself as she looked at her watch before raising a figure to forestall the agents as she turned towards the kitchen.

"Raoul!" she called at the window in the wall. "It's time! Get the pies out of the oven!"

A tired looking, stout Chicano man in his 50ties, in a dirty white t-shirt and low chef's hat appeared at the window with a quizzical look on his sweat-gleaming face asking.

"Qué?!"

"The pies!" Brenda repeated gesturing with her right hand at a corner which was probably where the oven was in the kitchen. "You need to…"

"Jefe, lo siento!" Raoul's eyes drooped as he raised both his hands in apparent dismay.

Brenda let out a breath, closing her eyes and putting her hand to her sweating forehead though 99 realized she was not actually mad at Raoul but more at herself because she had forgotten something that was routine. This proved true as Brenda lowered her hand and spoke again to Raoul with an embarrassed laugh.

"Los pasteles!" Brenda repeated, "Ellos stán listos!"

Raoul's face lights up with apprehension and puts up a thumb, replying as he went off to execute the task.

"No hay problema jefe!"

Brenda turned back to 99 and Max, still with a smile on her tired sweating face.

"So how much is it?" she asked again.

"Oh that's confidential I'm afraid." 99 apologised. "But needless to say, it is substantial and accrued over several years."

Brenda looked up and wagged her head from side to side in thought as she said.

"Well! It definitely hasn't stopped him stock piling those illegal havanas he loves almost more than CHEATING on women." Turning her attention again back to 99, the café owner asked. "So what happens if you do find him?"

"Well, unless he manages to provide a decent explanation backed up by documentation such as bankruptcy, a prolonged illness—I'm afraid he'll likely face multiple charges of tax evasion—perhaps even prison at the extreme." 99 explained with her eyes wide with concern. "Right Max?—Max?—Max!"

"Huh?! Wha…?!" Max exclaimed yanking his upper body from the titled position it was in and his eyes again back from Brenda's black clad hip and posterior, back to 99. "Oh! Aaaaah! Yes! Yes! Very…very serious! You see…we're from the IRS and…"

"Max! We've covered that!" 99's large blue eyes flashed at 86, halting him.

And Brenda did the eye rolling thing for 99 this time at Max as well as the lop-sided smile before looking back at the woman.

"So, we're sorry to trouble you Ms Coving." 99 continued with an awkward shrug of her slender shoulders. "Especially, considering how badly he left things with you. But would you know of any way we could locate him? A forwarding address? A telephone number?"

"Sweetie, it's never a bother when it comes to something I can do to help Stanley earn the loooong prison and accompanying extended all male-companionship he rightfully deserves." Brenda smiled with such forced warmth as she tucked a strand of ashen blonde hair behind her ear, that 99 truly felt sorry for her. "Unfortunately, I don't know WHERE he's hiding himself nowadays."

As 99 and Max deflated slightly with disappointment, Brenda tilts her ashen blonde head as she crosses her arms under her breasts, cheerily adding.

"I can tell you WHOM he's hiding himself with though. The ego-maniac couldn't help dropping her name in the note da prove what a GIFT to women he was."

"Oh!" 99's large eyes lit up. "He mentioned her name? Do you know her?"

"Oh everyone knows her." Brenda replied. "Pernilla Johansson."

Max's eyes finally narrowed at something other than Brenda's frame and 99 also squinted slightly in comprehension as she verified.

"The Swedish runway model and ski resort heiress?"

"That's the one." Brenda nodded.

As Max starts up the engine of the red 1965 Sunbeam Tiger two-seat roadster outside Coving's Café a few minutes later, he queries.

"Am I supposed to know that name? Penny…Perny…"

"Pernilla Johansson." 99 explained as she secured her seat belt. "She's one of the most sought after models right now. All the top fashion labels in the world are KILLING to sign her onto an exclusive. And that's BEFORE she inherited her family's ski resort empire. She's a billionaire now and even OWNS six fashion labels."

"Then why does she need to model at all?" Max wondered as he pulls the Sunbeam Tiger smoothly away from the curb and into traffic.

"She doesn't." 99 declared. "She's a well-known narcissist, obsessed with the glory and attention the runway accords her. But more importantly—" 99 punctuated with a soft shake of her delicate fist. "—she's famous for her love of men with exciting, dangerous professions or hobbies—whitewater kayaking, parachuting, race car drivers, boxers, soldiers, fencing instructors—even criminals! Last year Vogue Paris ran an article on her two year relationship with a Cosa Nostra enforcer. He eventually broke up with her claiming her reckless lifestyle was driving him towards a nervous breakdown."

Max nodded with approval as he steered past several cars, remarking.

"In other words, she and Němec are made for each other. It's nice to know even as you go through the world of espionage, even the bad guys can find nice girls."

99 turned towards Max, casting a look at him through half-lidded eyes that could smelt lead to which Max remained oblivious and continued.

"What I DON'T get Ninety-Nine is, where are we going now exactly?"

99 let out a breath to calm herself before replying.

"One of the fashion labels Pernilla has her eye on, is in town for a show. They've managed to secure her as their lead model. There's still three days left and Pernilla is checked in at the Peer Gynt Hotel. And if Němec follows his patterns, I bet he's staying with her in her suite."

"Good thinking Ninety-Nine! And really smart on Němec's part."

"That's right, the room would be registered in Pernilla's name and being a well-known playgirl no one is going to pay any attention to men in her room."

"And more importantly—" Max added making a left turn. "—he gets da raid the mini-bar for FREE!"

99 grimaced, rolling her eyes sideways at Max.

"Ok, Ninety-Nine, we gadda update the Chief. Could you get him on the phone?"

"Right Max." 99 opened the zip on her white rectangular handbag and her gray cotton gloved hands searched inside and emerged with a large yellow compact.

Flipping it open to reveal the mirror and the powder pad, she pulled out a thin antenna from the mirror half before speaking into it.

"Ninety-Nine calling CONTROL. This is Agent Ninety-Nine calling CONTROL. Come in CONTROL."

In his office, the Chief spoke into his phone, hoping his ulcers would not be further aggravated by Max.

"Ninety-Nine! Good to hear from you! Was Ms Coving able to give you anything on Němec's whereabouts?"

"We believe so Chief." 99 reported. "She believes his latest girlfriend is the Swedish fashion model Pernilla Johansson who's in D.C, staying at the Peer Gynt Hotel. We're headed over there now."

"That's good. A lead at last." The Chief sighed with relief.

"Tell…tell him Coving's Café has better bacon and eggs than Burt's Delicatessen." Max said leaning over as he drove.

"Um…Max says…" 99 began.

"I HEARD what Max said!" the Chief huffed in annoyance.

"But…but they don't validate your parking even if you eat there!" Max continued leaning left and right to get a good line of sight to steer through the traffic.

"Did you get that Chief?" 99 asked her eyes rolling back unconsciously.

"I wish I didn't." the Chief sighed, closing his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Tell him I'd be happy da get him some take out anytime! ANY-time you like Chief! You can count on me!" Max assured as he shifted gears and bypassed a station wagon.

"I KNOW I can, since I've SEEN Ms Coving's surveillance photo in our files!" the Chief yelled.

"Chief, what would you like us to do if we find Němec?" 99 interceded hoping to spare the Chief's blood pressure.

"It's very important not to arouse his suspicion." The Chief declared chopping his free hand in the air for emphasis even as she spoke on the phone. "Even if he IS involved in the robberies, Němec is only one man. We want the entire KAOS robbery unit! Keep Němec under surveillance and hopefully, he'll lead us to the rest, their leader and all their loot. We'll then move in and arrest them in an all-out raid!"

"Right Chief!" 99 nodded.

"Got it Chief! Tail Němec to the rest of the gang!" Max repeated as he pushed down on the gas pedal to keep pace with the traffic.

"There's no room for error Max!" the Chief's voice filtered over the speaker of the speaker on 99's compact-phone "The President called not five minutes ago. He is DEEPLY concerned especially taking into account the failures attributed to CONTROL that I explained earlier today in our briefing. We need to make progress on this case and fast!"

"Don't' worry Chief!" Max assured as he made a right turn. "The eagle eye and keen mind of Maxwell Smart is on the case! NOTHING gets by my eagle eyes and keen mind once I…"

"MAX LOOK OUT FOR THE RED LIGHT AND THE OLD LADY!" 99 screamed

The screech of the Sunbeam Tiger's brakes could be heard over the engines of every other vehicle around them and despite the seat belt pulling at her shoulder and crushing her breast, 99 had to brace her gloved hands on the dash board to prevent herself from being thrown head first into the windshield.

As the forward momentum of their car finally stopped, throwing both of back against the back rest of their seats, both stared ahead to see the old lady in a tweed dress, hunched over and walking with a cane, slowly limping across their path, just inches in-front of the headlights without turning to look at them.

"Max! Ninety-Nine! Are you both okay?!" the Chief's frantic voice issued over the compact-phone's speaker. "Is anyone hurt?"

99 blew out a long breath before answering.

"The…the lady is okay Chief. We stopped in time."

The Chief rested his forehead in the palm of his hand for a moment as he tried to get his heart to stop racing faster than a jet fighter. When he continued speaking into the phone, he did not lift up his face.

"Max, I'm going to have help waiting for you at the Peer Gynt Hotel."

"That's okay Chief." Max assured with a sunny smile as the light turned green and he eased the red Sunbeam Tiger forward again. "The eagle eye and keen mind of Maxwell SMART is on the case!"

"You almost just ran over an innocent CIVILIAN!" the Chief hollered, jumping in his seat, grip on the receiver knuckle white and gesticulating with his free hand.

Max leaned over to the compact-phone in 99's gloved hands as he steered replying.

"I said my eagle eye and keen mind was on the CASE! NOT—on the road."

As Max continued driving, 99 asked quickly.

"Chief. Who do we have as back-up?"

The Chief dropped four effervescent aspirins into a glass of water on his desk as he spoke.

"If you recall, about two weeks ago we believed KAOS was looking for a venue for their annual KAOS dance. Well we narrowed it down to three hotels. The Sheraton-Carlton Hotel, the Alledon Arms and the Peer Gynt. So we planted agents there for surveillance."

"Well we know it won't be the Alledon Arms! That crappy dump with cobwebs on every window?!" Max exclaimed making a face.

"Oh I don't know Max." the Chief returned shaking a finger. "Their commercial rate is HIGHLY attractive. CONTROL has been trying to get it for years."

"Chief, you're forgetting, this is KAOS' annual dance, NOT CONTROL's." Max pointed out as he switched gears again. "They HAVE the pockets for it."

"ANY-way!" the Chief exclaimed before pausing to take a long drink of the dissolved aspirin before continuing. "Wilkins is the agent planted at the Peer Gynt as a bellhop. I'll inform him to assist you. Contact him via standard protocol. Keep me apprised."

"Right Chief." Max nodded.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER 9**

The lavish pale lavender lobby of the Hotel Peer Gynt was a large L-shaped hall with the longer arm of the L being much wider than the shorter arm. The main revolving door entrance was at the bottom/south wall of the shorter arm directly in line with the end of the also L-Shaped counter that served as the front desk set with it's longer arm running the entire length of the east wall beginning at the north wall.

A seating area occupied the shorter arm of the L to the right of the revolving door with the north and south walls each equipped with 2 comfortable armchairs. Side tables with lamps were placed between the armchairs and a decorative potted plant was positioned next to the left arm chair at the north wall in line with another immediately to the right of the revolving door. A light brown rug decorated the floor of the seating area while above it in the ceiling was a round lamp within a red glass cube. Lavender columns were positioned at an entrance way at the end of the shorter arm of the L which enabled access to a separate corridor with more arm chairs along the walls.

As Max and 99 entered through the revolving door they scarcely had time to admire the luxury before turning left into the wider longer arm of the L, featuring the main area of the lobby with it's own richly embroidered larger rug. About 20 feet diagonally to the left of the revolving door was a waist high table with 3 glass partitioned public phones. Beyond that in the south west corner was a slight extension to the bottom of the long arm of the L with another sitting area with more colorful armchairs, a large t.v set and it's own darker brown rug.

Max guided 99 over to twin bright blue sofas arranged back-to-back with a narrow wooden shelf just an inch higher than the sofa's backs in between them on which a large vase of flowers was placed in between two decorative metal plates. The sofas were positioned a few feet before the front desk in line with shorter arm of the counter's L Shape. Low coffee tables of varnished wood with a green ash tray on each were placed before each sofa in either direction. Sitting down on the sofa facing the front desk, Max picked magazines from the coffee table before them and handed one to 99.

"The Chief is really worried about this case Max." 99 noted as she slipped the handles of her handbag from her left shoulder to place it on her lap as she gazed to her left at the north wall and head of the long arm of the L shaped lobby. She noted a curtained door in the wall beyond which was a corridor with a decorative marble table with another vase of flowers on it. A wooden table to the left of the door held a marble lamp with a yellow lampshade while a potted plant stood to the right of the door. Further to the right of the plant were 2 elevators with wide wooden doors and then the end of the north wall and the beginning of the long L-shaped front desk counter running along the east wall. Another potted plant was positioned at the north wall at the head of the counter's L shape.

"Don't worry Ninety-Nine. Once we contact our agent I'll check if he's seen Němec. If not, we'll just follow the model. Němec is sure da make contact with her sooner or later." Max said as he flipped through his magazine.

"I hope KAOS hasn't made their next move yet. Otherwise Němec won't even see her today." 99 pointed out.

"Everything's under control Ninety-Nine." Max assured gazing over at the long front desk where numerous well-dressed guests were queueing. "The eagle eye and keen mind of Maxwell SMART can absolutely guarantee that even if the next heist is happening RIGHTNOW, Němec will NOT report for duty without first coming to see Pernilla Johansson."

"How can you be sure Max?"

"Because my eagle eye and keen mind—" Max declared. "—just found Ms Pernilla Johansson's photograph in this magazine."

Max opened up his magazine fully to reveal the 99 the centrefold which showed the 5 foot 11 inch, Pernilla Johansson sprawled out on her side on the floor in a studio, on top of some form of white, striped animal fur; her hip length glorious light chestnut brown hair flowing over her broad bare shoulders, smouldering gray eyes burning at the camera as her sharp perfect chin thrusted forward below her pouting full lips. She was clad for the shoot in a black silk spaghetti strap slip that just barely reached to her mid-thigh, revealing long porcelain legs that seemed to go on forever.

99 grimaced at the picture and narrowed her eyes at Max who stared dreamily at the centrefold with one eyebrow raised. Leaving him to dream, she looked back at the 2 elevators at the head of the long arm of the L shaped lobby. Both of them chimed at about the same time and the wood panelled elevator doors slid open. From each elevator, a bellhop exited, dressed in their dark blue double-breasted suits with gold buttons, yellow collars and a narrow yellow band around the sleeves few inches above the wrist; over a white shirt and black tie. Their trouser legs bore a yellow stripe down the sides, which flashed as each of them pushed or pulled a fully loaded luggage laden cart out of the elevators.

Both bellhops pushed their luggage carts along the length of the front desk past Max and 99 and finally stopped near the revolving door. One of them was a lean man about 5ft 10, in his late thirties with neat ash gray hair and widow's peak and deep smile lines on his round chinned face.

"You just take it easy." He told the other younger bellhop. "I'll take care of this with the front desk."

As the other bellhop nodded gratefully, the older bellhop walked back along the length of the front desk.

"Max, there he is." 99 informed.

When there was no immediate response, 99 turned and nudged Max with her elbow to bring him back from his dreamy stare at the magazine.

"Oh!" Max looked up finally and regaining his composure declared. "You keep an eye on everyone in the lobby Ninety-Nine. I'll make contact."

"Right Max."

Max rose with the magazine still in his hand and walked over to Wilkins who was standing at the north end of the front desk where the large potted plant on the floor was. The CONTROL agent had his left elbow on the desk and faced south, seemingly allowing the front desk staff to focus on the guests who were checking in and out before bringing up his issue with them. Walking up to him, Max stood leaning his back against the front desk counter putting the potted plant on his right and Wilkin's back on his left.

While continuing to browse through his magazine, in a low surreptitious, serious tone of utmost caution and secrecy, Max began.

"Will you come my Phyllis dearie?"

Wilkins without turning or taking his eyes off the busy front desk personnel, continued.

"To the wild mountain free."

Max flipped to a new page of his magazine and continued.

"Where blossoms smell the sweetest."

"Come roll along with me."

"So wait for the wagon."

"Oh. Wait for the wagon."

Then both of them putting forth their best bass pitch, sang together tilting their heads back at the end.

" _And we'll aaaall—take a riiiiiiiide._ "

Finishing the recognition code, Max continued reading his magazine as the agent greeted him over his shoulder.

"Eighty-Six."

"Wilkinson."

"It's Wilkins!" the agent hissed still looking forward. "You're always getting my name wrong Max!"

Max frowned at this revelation, mouthing the two names over and over again trying to figure out which one was right.

"The Chief said you're looking for a KAOS agent who's supposedly with that Swedish model Pernilla?"

"Correct." Max confirmed. "Stanislav Němec. Here's his picture. Have you seen him?"

Max flipped to another page and held it open while Wilkins casually shifted his position to lean his back against the front desk also and crossing his arms as though to settle in for a long wait, enabling him to gaze at Max's open magazine, now on his right.

"Is he in disguise here?" Wilkins puzzled looking about.

"Of course not!" Max scowled, looking about the busy lobby. "What use would it be to show you a picture of him in disguise?!"

"You're showing me a picture of Phyllis Diller!" was Wilkin's response.

Max's eyes widened and he looked at his magazine and realized it was indeed an article of the famous comedian, posing on stage in one of her trademark loud dresses with a cigarette holder in her teeth and grinning at the camera.

Max grimaced and flipped to the next page where he had actually stashed the photo.

"No. Haven't seen him." Wilkins reported. "But Pernilla is in suite Seven-Oh-Four. She checked in about two months ago, paid for SIX months and only returned recently for the fashion show."

"So she kept the room even though she wasn't here." Max surmised.

"What's more, even though she's gone, room service has been getting regular orders from her suite and charging it to her account." Wilkins added.

"Did they see who received the food?" Max asked.

"The room service boys say it's some guy with a red beard and hair, big dark glasses. Could be Němec in disguise."

"Why didn't' you check it out?!" Max exclaimed softly looking about.

"My orders didn't involve Pernilla!" Wilkins hissed before smiling cordially and waving at a front desk staff who was gesturing to him asking him to wait a bit longer. "Besides, we're talking about a woman who dated the Mafia! She could be with any NUMBER of criminals who don't want to be recognized or it could just be a married guy!"

"Okay! Okay!" Max grumbled. "Is Pernilla in her room now?"

"No she left bout' nine this morning. Goes shopping for hours every day."

"The guy with the red beard?"

"Haven't seen im but I wasn't looking and there're lots of ways in and out of this place."

"Okay, Wilkinson…"

"Wilkins!"

Max squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head in frustration before continuing.

"Okay! Okay!—Wilkins! We need da get into Pernilla's room, plant some listening devices and search for anything that could give us a clue to Němec's presence."

"Bellhops don't have keys to rooms but you can use your skeleton key." Wilkins suggested. "Problem is making sure there's no one inside first. We could call the room but if it's Němec up there or anyone else that's trying da keep a low profile, he might just not answer. But I got a plan."

"Good." Max nodded flipping the page of the magazine. "Here's what we do. You and Ninety-Nine get into the room while I stay down here and keep an eye out for Pernilla."

"Right Eighty-Six." Wilkins agreed. "But I can't be gone too long. It's check out time now and as you can see it's really busy down here."

"I THINK—this is more im-POR-tant!" Max declared

"So is my cover here!" Wilkins insisted. "Plus I'm up for Employee of the Month!"

Max frowned and shook his head in disbelief.

"Wilkins this is NOT a real JOB! You're a secret agent for CONTROL!"

"I know that!" Wilkins hissed still pretending to be waiting for the front desk staff. "But the Employee of the Month gets a really nice mug. Solid steel, inlaid with real silver, made in Switzerland! I could use one for my coffee back at CONTROL, since I don't get to keep my PAY from this cover-job!"

"I hear you!" Max said rolling his eyes.

"Have Ninety-Nine meet me on the seventh."

"Right."

Outside the door with the ornate gold number plate reading '704' a few minutes later, the middle-aged red haired chamber maid stood, keys dangling from her right hand fingers while her left rested on the handle of her cleaning trolley. A few seconds later, the door opened and Wilkins came out with an annoyed look on his face.

"You can lock it up." He grumbled gesturing angrily at the offending door.

"Where're the packages?" the maid asked as she locked the door with a few loud turns of the key.

"That's what I'D like da know!" Wilkins huffed tossing his hands up in resignation. "She told the front desk da send someone up at ONE-THIRTY! ONE-THIRTY!" Wilkins pointed at his watch in annoyance. "And whaddaya know? No Pernilla! No packages!"

"You sure you looked everywhere?" the maid grimaced hooking the keys onto her belt.

"Everywhere I DARED!" Wilkins rolled his eyes. "Even inside the BATHrooms! Nothing! I HATE it when these egomaniacal celebrities stay here!"

"Tell me bout it!" the maid tossed her head back scoffing. "She demands new towels every TWO hours whenever she's in!"

"With all that shopping she does, it's gonna every bellhop we got when SHE checks out." Wilkins grunted. "Anyway, thanks Irma! Gadda get back downstairs."

Irma laughed giving Wilkins a slap on the arm as she moved down the corridor pushing her cleaning cart. Wilkins walked back towards the elevator but once a surreptitious look over her shoulder confirmed that Irma was out of sight, he stopped and walked a few steps back towards a door to a storage room. His knuckles rapped out a quick 3 knock signal. The door opened slightly and 99's yellow bereted head appeared.

"Clear." Wilkins said.

Emerging from the storage closet, the two CONTROL agents hurried back to room 704 with 99's gray cotton gloved hand emerging from her compact white handbag under her left arm with her skeleton key. A second late they both stepped into the living area furnished with plush armchairs and sofas and featured a wide sliding glass door in the northern wall opposite the door leading to a balcony.

99's large blue eyes widened as she gave a lopsided smile.

"I never got a room like THIS when I was modelling. This living room is bigger than my whole apartment!"

"Rub it in." Wilkins grimaced nodding sideways to a door in the eastern wall of the living area. "The BED in there is the size of my place."

99 gave a soft laugh and paused as she sniffed the air.

"Havanas." 99 confirmed. "Someone's been smoking a lot of it in here."

"Noticed that too." Wilkins nodded. "We're definitely on the right track. I'll look out here first, you start in the bedroom."

The bed room was almost twice the size of the living area. And while 99 was sure that Wilkins was exaggerating about the size of the bed compared to his apartment, the prime furniture in the room certainly did not fail to impress. It was semi-circular in shape and larger than even a king-sized, swathed in bright red satin sheets. 99 searched the drawers on both sides of the bed finding nothing unusual. When she got halfway through the cabinets Wilkins came walked in.

"Nothing in the living room." He reported striding over to a set of slatted double doors to the left of the bed. "I'll check the walk-in closet."

99 nodded from where she crouched going through the drawers. Her gloved hands rifled swiftly through the items in each one but nothing unusual turned up. Quickly she straightened and joined Wilkins in the walk-in closet.

Upon entering she again had to stop to blink for a second at the size of the room. It stretched away from her for nearly 20 ft, with all manners of dresses and coats lining the walls on either side. Two coats on the left wall parted to reveal Wilkins stepping out from some space behind them.

"There's enough room back there for her own shop." Wilkins said jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the place he just stepped from.

"Fortunately we won't have to look over every inch." 99 pointed a gloved finger towards the back of the closet.

Wilkins followed her and at the last 5 ft of the closet space, they checked the clothing hanging on both sides.

"Men's clothes." Wilkins noted immediately.

99 lifted a few sports jackets and pants from the hangers examining them closely.

"They're all the same size." 99 confirmed. "For a man of Němec's height and weight."

"Got something back here." Wilkin's voice sounded from behind the row of suits on the left.

He stepped out with what looked like an oversized black brief case, twice the thickness of a normal one. Turning it outwards, he opens it up to reveal a multitude of padded pockets and foamed lined inserts containing different types of glasses, false moustaches and eyebrows of a variety of colors, prosthetic noses, cheeks, bottles of facial adhesives and toners, different colored false sideburns etc.

"Disguise kit." 99 noted picking up one of the bottles of toners and examining it.

"And a large number of mannequin heads back there too with different colored toupées."

"The man spotted by room service HAS to be Němec." 99 surmised with a gloved fist pressed to her fine chin. "We need…"

She was interrupted by a ringing from her hangbag. Reaching in, she extracted her compact and flipped it open, pulling the antenna.

"Agent Ninety-Nine here."

In the lobby, Max at in the blue sofa facing away from the front desk, watching the revolving door and reading a magazine. He had no choice but to use his Wrist Communicator T-37 as the less conspicuous evil as opposed to his shoe phone.

"Ninety-Nine." Max spoke into his T-37 on his raised left wrist as he held the magazine up and peered towards his left at the revolving door door where a tall woman in a long white fur lined coat and sunglasses was just sweeping in.

She walked with her chin up, long mane of glorious light chestnut brown hair flowing behind her. Scurrying to keep up with her were two men and a woman in suits and skirt suits, each one overburdened with at least 8 to 9 shopping bags bearing the names of dozens of fashion labels.

"Pernilla is back." Max reported

"Is Němec with her?" 99 asked nodding quickly to Wilkins who swiftly shut the disguise kit and moved to place it back.

"No." Max replied. "Just a few personal shoppers. Definitely not him. You and Wil…uh…you two better finish up and plant the bugs. I'll stall her."

"Right Max." 99 acknowledged.

"She's heading to the elevator now." Max noted.

Pernilla stopped right at the elevator so suddenly her three staff slammed into each other trying to avoid walking into her and one of the men and the woman dropped several shopping bags. As they scrambled to pick up the fallen items, Pernilla turned to them and spoke imperiously in her sharp voice.

"All vight. Disappear until I call for you. Ensure every one of those items are packed and ready for transport according to my instructions. And if I find so much as a crease, smudge, spot, wrinkle or misaligned THREAD in any ONE of those items, each of which are worth FIFTY of you worthless SERFS—you will all never work in this WORLD again."

"Yes!...Yes Miss Johansson!" the three personal shoppers nodded, sweating and clutching onto their shopping bags.

"Be gone." Pernilla decreed turning her back to them and all three of them practically ran from her, shopping bags flying from their fists.

As Pernilla waited for the elevator, a nasal voice assailed her.

"Miss Pernilla Johansson?"

Pernilla turned to look down her nose at the short lean man in the dim gray suit and tie standing before her. His ears looked big enough to propel a small elephant through the air and his lisp of a mouth looked like an accidental gash.

"You already know the answer to that." The model replied coldly.

"Well, uh…of course." Max nodded. "I'm Richard M Colm from the New York Times. I flew down especially to cover the show here in D.C and our fashion editor was wondering if you could spare a few moments for an interview."

"That is most peculiar since the show was just IN New York and I've already given an interview to no less than FIVE reporters from your fashion page." Was Pernilla's frosty response though she could not help but lift a plucked eyebrow at the way the man's beady eyes gleam over the curves of her figure outlined by her form fitting silver, silk thigh length dress under her coat.

"Well," Max said with a lopsided smile as he hooked a thumb into the pocket of his double-breasted dim gray vest. "ONE interview is hardly enough for someone of your…eeeh—" 86's eyes lowered slightly to the hills of Pernilla's silk wrapped breasts. "—stature."

Pernilla smiled as the beady eyed man made a visible effort to flick his eyes up from her chest to meet her sunglasses.

In the suite, 99 crouched at the coffee table with her gloved hand under it. Wilkins walked in from the bedroom.

"Ok! Bugs are in place, under both bedside tables, inside the closet and bathroom."

"I placed them under the table out on the balcony, putting the last one in here now." 99 reported before standing up. "Ok. Let's go."

They both trotted to the suite's door but even as Wilkins reached for the door knob, they heard the metallic movement of tumblers as a key slid into the lock. They barely had time to give each other a wide eyed look of shock before bolting in a full run towards the bed room.

They both barely managed to get out of line-of-sight of the front door as they ducked into the bedroom when they heard the knob turn and the door opened. Wilkins grabbed 99's gloved hand and they dashed towards the walk in closet. They barely managed to get in and close the door soundlessly as they heard footsteps in the living area.

"She COULDN'T have got up here so fast!" Wilkins hissed softly as the peered through the slats which casted bars of light onto their faces. "Even if she DID get past Max!"

"Could it be the maid?" 99 whispered

"No. Irma had already cleared this entire wing. That's why I asked for her help da get me in earlier." Wilkins declared. "It..."

"Oh no." came 99's hushed exclamation and both of them stared in shock through the slats as a figure entered the room.

It was not Pernilla however but a man with a neat gray beard and thick hair and sideburns under a black fedora with sunglasses, in a dark brown suit and tie, wrapped in a beige trench coat. 99 and Wilkins backed away from the door preparing to duck behind the dresses should the man come towards them.

Fortunately, for the moment, the man tossed his fedora and sunglasses on the bed revealing a styled pompadour haircut and cold gray eyes before stepping into the adjoining bathroom as he shrugged off his trench coat. Both 99 and Wilkins scowled in annoyance as the man left the door opened dashing their hopes of a quick escape. They heard the faucet turn on and remained running along with quick splashes.

"So after I was crowned Fröken Sverige I of course went on to represent Sveden in zer Miss Universe Pageant." Pernilla expounded.

She was lounging in one of the lavish sofa's in the extended bottom of the L's long arm where the T.V was, her fur lined coat sprawled open and her long porcelain legs crossed comfortably. Max sat opposite her in an armchair with a notepad and pen, scribbling away.

"And you won of course." Max said his eyes darting up and down from the note pad to Pernilla's long sleek thighs, following the curve of her hamstrings down to their glorious end underneath her.

"You should know of course zhat I didn't but I take no offence because I love to tell the story." Pernilla continued unfazed and purposely straightened her right leg which was on top as though to stretch it but actually to flex her hamstring which bulged sensually along with the lower edge of her exposed gluts.

It had the desired effect as Max's hand holding his pencil seemed to spasm followed by a loud click and splintering. He stopped for a moment to look down and slowly lifted up his pencil to reveal the broken tip.

"Uuuh sorry Miss Johansson." Max said sheepishly. "Would you mind if I get another pencil from the front desk?"

"That's your fifth vun eesn't it?" Pernilla's full lips stretched into a smouldering smile as she tilted her head, gray eyes glittering from the light in the lobby.

"That's what happens when I'm PASSIONATE about a story!" Max declared.

"I can tell." Pernilla's right eyebrow lifted knowingly and her thick lower lip pouted. "But I DO hate to interrupt myself when I am telling a story. I too have my—'passions'."

With that she stretched out her long leg again and Max jerked and looked down to see the sharp toe of Pernilla's high heel shoe caressing his right knee.

"Uuuuh…uhhh…uhhhh…" Max stammered quivering in the arm chair staring at Pernilla's moving foot before looking up eye brows slack as he gushed. "I'll memorize it!"

"Splendid." Pernilla breathed and tilting her head back continued. "Yes. I didn't win. I dropped out of zer Miss Universe Pageant because during the semi-finals, who should I receive calls from on the same night but the personal secretaries of Mila Schön and Paco Rabanne, both offering to sign me up there and then to their labels. Not that I could blame them of course…"

Wilkins growled in frustration. "He must've come in through one of the other entrances. If he'd only shut the door, we could make a dash for it!"

"We can't let Max stall Pernilla forever either!" 99 shook her gloved hands anxiously.

"Oh don't worry!" Wilkins scoffed dismissively turning from the closet door, hands on his hips. "Knowing Max's eyes for the ladies and Pernilla's ego they'd be at it for HOURS!"

"That's EXACTLY why we can't let him stall her forever!" 99 exclaimed barely keeping her voice under control as her huge blue eyes flashed in the dim light inside the closet.

"Wait, he's coming out." Wilkins noted leaning towards the door again to peer through the slats.

As they both watched, the man came out of the bathroom and both of their eyes narrowed at his appearance now. The gray hair and beard was gone revealing the sculpted narrow face, square jawline and light brown hair of Stanislav Němec.

The gray toupée and false beard dangled from his hand and he tossed it onto the bed alongside the fedora and sunglasses as he wiped his face with a towel and exited the room.

"We can't stay in here." 99 declared looking about them. "He's bound to come in to stow away his disguise or get a new one.

Wilkins brow furrowed in thought for a few seconds, his forefinger knuckle pressed to his chin. He then looked up shaking the finger for emphasis.

"I've got an idea!" he said. "Follow my lead."

Standing at the bar at the west wall of the living area, a double whiskey on the rocks on the bar top, Němec extracted a white cigar storage tube from inside his sports jacket, removes the cap and slides out the thick havana inside into his hand. He smiles as he puts the thick cigar to his nose and inhales, closing his eyes to savour the aroma. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he produces a double-guillotine-style cigar cutter and inserts the cap end of the cigar into it. Just as he snips off the end neatly, the sound of the closet door opening in the bedroom along with man's voice spins him around toward the door of the bedroom.

"…so Miss Westbrook. Now that you've seen five of our finest suites, how would you like to continue your inspection? One of the restaurants perhaps?"

Němec starts to dash to the bedroom but realizes he was still holding the cigar and cutter and runs back to the bar and then looks back and forth undecidedly trying to decide what to do as a woman's voice now follows, full of airs and superiority.

"Yes. The board of directors are most concerned about the cuisine. We have already received complaints from some highly influential guests on the dwindling quality of the food that is served."

Němec barely manages to stuff the cigar back into it's tube and replace the stopper before reaching into his jacket and yanking out his snub-nosed .38 caliber S&W Model 10. He just barely hides it behind his back before a man in the yellow collared, gold buttoned, dark blue double-breasted suit of a hotel bellhop walks into the living area from the bed room leading a tall striking woman dressed in a long sleeved, A-line ultramarine dress with an orange and red striped band of fabric encircling the dress's turtle-neck to accentuate her graceful neck while a jaunty yellow beret perched atop her dark brown shoulder length hair.

Both of them stopped in their tracks upon seeing him and the bellhop immediately smiled nervously.

"Oh I'm SO sorry sir! We didn't hear you come in!"

Němec's cold eyes squinted back and forth between them and 99 knew what he must be concealing in his right hand behind his back even as she maintained her act.

"WHY are you in here?!" the KAOS agent demanded as an irate guest would upon finding his privacy disrupted. "WHERE is Miss Johansson?!"

"I'm so sorry Sir." Wilkins apologised again. "Miss Johansson is out and we unfortunately received a visit from Miss Westbrook here, out of our Corporate Office in Maryland. She's carrying out a surprise inspection of hotels in our chain."

"Quality Control." 99 smiled with a nod. "All part of the board's efforts to ensure the highest standards of luxury for our …"

"SURELY—you have rooms that are unoccupied." Was Němec's calm challenge which worried 99.

"Ah that was partly my fault." 99 laughed tilting her head making her hair swirl over her shoulder. "You see, we've realized that some of our branches, unfortunately maintain certain rooms in model condition for surprise inspections like these. A practice that is STRICTLY forbidden by our board's policies I assure you. Which is why we always insist on checking a room that is already occupied. MUCH harder for them to …."

"Didn't you hear me come in?" Němec interrupted, his voice increasingly calm and razor edged.

"I'm afraid not Sir!" Wilkins exclaimed. "We were all the way inside the back of the closet and…well, you know how deep it is."

"Checking for fungus and mold you see." 99 explained maintaining her confident smile "It's a common problem with closets of this size and depth. A good thing too as I see Miss Johansson has some VERY expensive apparel in her collection—Rudi Gernreich swimwear, dresses by Mary Quant and Pabo Rabanne. She certainly wouldn't want them ruined! But you'll be glad to hear that her closet is mold and fungus free."

"And we are so sorry to intrude." Wilkins rounded up, clasping his hands apologetically in the face of Němec's relentless stare. "We'll be on our way."

"And I'll speak to the manager to arrange for some complimentary champagne and gift basket sent up for you and Miss Johansson for this inconvenience." 99 turned to Wilkins "I believe the hotel has some Laurent-Perrier in stock?"

"Absolutely Miss Westlake!" Wilkins nodded. "I'll take you to our manager at once so the arrangements can be made. A good day to you sir."

With that they both turned towards the door and Němec's voice froze them in their tracks.

"Aaaalright! Enough iz enuf! Hanz—UP!"

Němec's right hand swung out from behind his back, levelling the snub-nosed S&W Model 10 at them.

Wilkins and 99 both gasped, hoping to still bluff their way out of this mess.

"Sir! Sir!" Wilkins protested putting up a placating hand. "I ASSURE you this isn't necessary! We really AM sorry to intrude on Miss…"

"Quiet!" Němec snapped jerking the gun as he advanced across the living area towards them. "You take me vor zum kind of vool! I knew who you were za moment I zaw you! Well HER at least! Miss WEST-lake—"

99's big eyes widened as Němec gestured with the revolver at her but sighed in resignation as the KAOS agent continued.

"—or should I say—Agent Ninety-Nine of CONTROL!"

With that, Wilkins scowled as well and both he and 99 raised their hands as the KAOS agent stopped directly in front of them just beyond arms reach with the door between them.

"We were sown fotographs ov all known CONTROL agents when we began zhis mission." Němec smirked. "And jor's a zat idiot Marxwell Smart are on da TOP of da list!—" the narrow faced agent paused to chortle, a sound like stones hitting gravel. "—I just want to zee you two squvirm like červ before I revealed zhat da game is UP!"

"You certainly had us fooled." 99 sighed rolling her eyes sideways.

Němec gestured with the S&W Model 10 as he ordered.

"You! Agent Ninety-Nine! Your purse! Toss it on the floor here! You! Bellboy! Your GUN! And no triky!"

"So THIS is what you left Czechoslovakian State Security for?" Wilkins scoffed with a dry chuckle as he retrieved his parted his snub nosed .38 caliber revolver from the inside jacket pocket of his yellow collared double-breasted suit jacket and tossed it over to land at the KAOS agent's feet. "To become a petty thief, robbing hotels and armored cars?"

"Yezzzz." Němec nodded and pouted slightly as he tilted his brown haired head. "Afzer ten jears of KILING a TOR-ture a maiming innozent, helpless peeple—I started to realize zumthing!"

"That what you're doing is inhuman and wrong?" 99 offered as she slipped her handbag with her right hand from her left shoulder.

Němec squinted as he replied.

"Ne. I realize—I not getting paid ENUV for it! Or getting enough BENEFITS! Zoo you know NOW, I get tventy-five percent SUFFARING bonus if I don't die immediately from my vounds? Pluz they hav Annual Dances—I LOVE to dance! A I've always wanted to zee South America!—" Němec paused to take a deep breath and raise his left arm to proclaim at the ceiling. "—WHERE has KAOS BEEN all my life?!"

"We're SO glad you've found your calling." 99 grimaced as she slipped her handbag's handles past her wrist, surreptitiously detaching one of the glass pellets from the bracelet she wore and palming it before tossing her handbag over to join Wilkin's revolver next to the KAOS agent's shoes.

"Děkuji! Děkuji!" Němec beamed, nodding happily. "A now! Time to say—rozloučení!"

99's big eyes widens slightly as the KAOS agent aims his revolver at them.

"You KNOW you can't shoot us here." Wilkins declared. "It's a full house right now and EVERY-one on this floor is gonna hear the shot!"

"And you'll have to find a new hiding place." 99 shrugged.

"Zhat iz why, we huv ZHIS!" Němec announced, his left hand coming out of his jacket pocket with a polished black metal tube which he proceeds to attach to the muzzle of his revolver. "We wouldn't want to disturb zher ozher guests…"

The KAOS agent was interrupted as a shrill ringing sounded from 99's handbag at this feet. Reflectively, Němec looked down at the source of the sound and 99's right arm swung down as she hurled the glass pellet at his feet.

The tiny pellet turned into a small geyser of orange smoke as it shattered at Němec's feet, accompanied by a soft _phoomp_ sound. As the KAOS agent failed his arms about, staggering backwards out of the smoke, 99 and Wilkins dodged away to either side in case he opened fired out of desperation as a loud sizzling sound added to the commotion.

"Hloupý CONTROL AGENTS!" Němec yelled coughing as he whipped his left arm about to clear the orange smoke while aiming his weapon only to stop and gape for all that was left in his hand was the curved grip of the revolver with the rest of it turned into a sizzling, drooping molten mess, dripping all over the carpet.

Growling, Němec looked up to see Wilkins charging at him. Before he could react, the undercover agent's right knife hand slammed down on his wrist, popping his hand open and dropping the melted weapon to the floor. Wilkin's left fist whipped through the air smashing across Němec's chin, turning the KAOS agent's head to the left as 99 dived for her purse.

Wilkins right whistled through the air only to have Němec duck under it and hook a stunning right into the CONTROL agent's solar plexus. It bent Wilkins forward slightly and staggered him back a few steps. Němec charged forward, his left hand clamped on Wilkin's shoulder like an eagle's talons on it's prey, pushing his opponent back while delivering a right handed knife hand strike to the CONTROL agent's neck.

Wilkins slumped with agonized grunt as he was pushed past the door but still managed to grab hold of the KAOS agent's lapels. As both continued to struggle, 99 crouched on the floor fumbled with her handbag.

Struggling near the door, Němec's forearms surged up, knocking Wilkin's hands from his jacket. Wilkins managed to lash out with his right leg at the KAOS agent's midsection. Němec twisted swiftly letting the flying foot sweep past his ribcage before grabbing the airborne ankle and kicking the back of Wilkins' other leg. The CONTROL agent grunted in pain as he collapsed onto the floor on his back. He sits up immediately grabbing for his opponent only to have Němec's right fist smash downwards into his jaw flooring him again.

As Wilkins laid where he was, face twisted in agony, head spinning, Němec dashes for the door. His hand was inches from the doorknob when a voice freezes him.

"Hold it!"

The KAOS agent remains still for a moment, hand still out stretched before looking back over his shoulder to find 99 on her feet, her .38 caliber double barreled derringer in her gloved hand aimed at him.

"Ju can't shoot me anymore zarn I could without zilenzer!" Němec chuckled dryly his hand still inches from the door knob.

99's gloved thumb locked back the hammer on her weapon in response, her large eyes narrowing into blue slits as she declared.

"Will you take that chance?"

They remained glaring at each other for the next split second before the door knob clicked and turned of it's own accord calling both their attention to it. The door opened and a sharp, imperious voice announced itself.

"—I was of course stunned! And so I asked Mila and Paco—'Wouldn't it do both your lines even GREATER glory if I were to come model for you AFTER I become Miss Universe? And they both said 'NO'! Because it seemed, they both KNEW that a vacuous title like that was meaningless and it was my unparalleled presence, charm and goddess like beauty that—"

99's eye's widened in alarm as the tall white cloaked figure entered following the voice, brown tresses sweeping behind her over the shoulders of her fur-lined coat and she shouted her warning too late.

"Look out!"

"—they needed and not…"

Pernilla's self-absorbed tale turned into a startled scream as Němec grabbed her, his arm wrapping around her throat and dragging her in, white fur lined coat and long brown mane flying about.

99 stepped forward trying to get a clear aim at Němec as he held the flailing international model in front of him and to add shock to bewilderment, the dim gray-suited individual whom the heiress was speaking to stumbled in after her, wide eyed, mouth agape and ears looking as though they were about to send him airborne.

"Max!" 99 exclaimed as 86 stood there looking back and forth from the groaning Wilkins on the floor to the cursing Pernilla in Němec's headlock.

"Stanis you idiot! What are you doing?!" Pernilla hollered grabbing at the arm around her neck. "This hair took me TWO HOURS at the salon!"

"All of you STAY where you are!" Němec yelled, maintaining his left arms grip around the struggling Pernilla while his right hand whipped out from his jacket causing an indiscernible object to tumble out of the garment and fall to the floor. 99 had no time to look closer for the KAOS agent had something in his hand which he put to his teeth and then yanked it away with a loud click before spitting something off to the side.

"Now, now." Max said his palms facing outwards at the KAOS agent and his hostage. "There's no need to get upset over this. Miss Johansson and I are perfectly happy to drink at the bar in the lobby."

99's eyes darted to the small needle like object on the carpet with a ring attached which Němec had spat out before looking back at him and found the KAOS agent with his right fist raised with a black, oval object in it.

"Max! He has a grenade!" 99 warned trying to keep Němec's head in her sights.

"Any of you move a we ALL die together!" Němec declared, looking back and forth between 99 and Max.

"Stanis, if you so much as put one STRAND of my hair out of place or get a SPOT on my five THOUSAND dollar mink coat—it is OVER between us!" Pernilla fumed slapping at Němec's restraining forearm around her throat.

"You heard her Stan." Max gestured at the heiress. "Think about her coat!"

"Don't come any closer or I drop this and we all die!" Němec threatened, his glimmering eyes darting from one CONTROL agent to the other while clutching the grenade.

"Come on Stan, that's not necessary." Max offered. "We don't mind you dropping the grenade AFTER me and Pernilla leave!"

"Maaaax!" 99 gaped in shock at him.

"I didn't say you and Wilkins couldn't come along!" Max shrugged his eyes popping in amazement.

"Well, this has been interesting," Němec's decisive voice cut through into everyone's attention. "but I haf to be going now. Pernilla—" the KAOS agent turns his attention to the Swedish model in his head lock. "—my sladký dort, as fun as it haz been—I cannot tolerate anyone vith such an EGO!"

"You mean SMALLER than YOURS?!" Pernilla scowled at him over her shoulder. "And speaking of SMALL—it's a term I can apply to OTHER attributes of yours!"

Němec's gleaming eyes popped, square jaw dropping as he stared point blank at Pernilla's cold visage while declaring.

"And zhey call ME the cruel torturer!"

With that, his right arm shot up, hand opened, sending the grenade flying. 99 gasped as she watched the grenade arced through the air in her direction while it's spoon flew off, spinning away on another trajectory. Max stepped forward only to have Pernilla collide into him, flung by the KAOS agent. The tall woman struck him with such force he crashed to the carpet with her on top of him while Němec dashed out the door, slamming it shut behind him. The grenade landed at 99's booted feet and rolled away.

"Get the grenade!" Wilkins yelled struggling to get up.

99 turned lunging for the rolling explosive device.

Pernilla with her hands on the carpet pushed her upper body up and Max beneath her, gasped for breath, his eyes popping as the weight of her white silk clad breasts lifted off his face. She saw 99 stand up with the grenade in her gloved hand.

99 drew her hand back to throw the device and Pernilla screamed in horror.

"NOOOOO!"

"Miss Johansson! Stay like this where it's safe!" Max yelled out beneath her and pulled her down mashing the wobbling spheres of her breasts down onto his face again as 99 hurled the grenade sending it sailing through the air and through the bedroom door before diving to the carpet with Wilkins doing the same.

The entire suite rocked with a deafening thunder and pieces of wood, mattresses, fabric and clothing showered out of the door of the bedroom and rained down on the CONTROL agents and Swedish heiress.

99 was the first one to get up, bits of wood, mattress fabric and pillow feathers stuck to her hair and ultramarine dress.

"Is everyone alright?!" she asked

Wilkins groaned as he sat up, holding the side of his jaw.

"I'm okay!"

"You IDIOTS!" Pernilla hollered shoving herself off Max who was still trying to follow her chest with his face.

As the heiress stomped over the debris strewn floor towards the doorway of the bedroom, Max rushed to the door, feathers and mattress stuffing stuck to his dim gray suit as he called out.

"Ninety-Nine! Come on! We might still be able to catch him!—" Pausing halfway out the door as 99 joined him, Max called after the Swedish model. "—Pernilla! What kind of car does Stan drive and where does he park it?!"

"What do I care?!" Pernilla yelled with a dismissive wave over her shoulder as she reached the bed room door. "I waz almost DONE with him ANYvay...MY WARDROOOOBE! ARRRRR!"

Pernilla screamed, interrupting herself as she gaped in abject horror upon beholding the sight of the carnage inside her bed room, hands raised, clutching at her hair.

"If we catch him we'll make him pay for EVERY piece of clothing that you lost!" 99 yelled.

"—ARRRRRR!—," Pernilla stopped abruptly before glaring back over her shoulder at them. "—He dlives a black Jaguar! I gave him my hotel parking pass zo zher CHEAP-skate could park for free! And for-GET about paying me back! Just STRING him UP by his svenska köttbullar and get me a PICTURE!"

With that she stomps into the bedroom and 86 called after her.

"Right! String! Svenska köttbullar! Picture!"

"Max!" 99 exclaimed in shock at his puppy eyed compliance while 86 grinned sheepishly.

"I'll call this in to CONTROL and take care of things here! You two go get him!" Wilkins got to his feet, still wincing in pain from his jaw and shoulder.

"Thanks Wilkinson!" Max declared as he and 99 dashed away down the corridor.

"IT'S WILKI...arrrgggh forget it!" Wilkins exclaimed tossing his hands up at the empty doorway.

Max and 99 ran down the corridor and around the corner to the elevator lobby, only find the indicator for both cars at the ground floor.

"Stairs! Stairs!" Max announced, running to the staircase door.

A few minutes later, both of them burst out through the rear entrance of the hotel which lead to the carpark. But both of them stopped short for a second at the scene before them even though they fully expected the carpark to be huge and very busy at that time.

The area failed to disappoint as Max and 99 surveyed it, looking left and right. Almost every lot was occupied and there were dozens of people walking about not to mention various cars pulling out of and into lots as well as driving in and out of the entrance.

"Black Jaguar! Black Jaguar! Black Jaguar…" Max kept repeating as he and 99 ran down the rows and columns of lots looking about at the parked and moving vehicles.

"There! A black…" Max yelled pointing only to grit his teeth immediately. "Sorry! It's a Porsch!"

"There it goes!" 99 yelled out next her gloved finger pointing and they started running in the direction she pointed but stopped when 99 realized her error. "No! Aston Martin!"

"There! There! Its…its…" Max's eyes popped as he pointed in another direction. He sighed tossing his hand up in the air. "…it's a Ferrari!"

"Black car over there!" 99 exclaimed pointing ahead.

"Where?! Where?!" Max exclaimed running forward between 2 car lots and stopped standing up on his tip toes.

"Ooooh no Max!" 99 declared in dismay as she reached his side and the vehicle moved into view in the distance. "It's a BMW!"

"This is stupid! This is hopeless! This is.…"

"Max look out!" 99 yelled out grabbing Max's arm and dragging him back just as a horn blared accusingly as a green 1964 Mercedes-Benz 190 zoomed past them on the way to the entrance.

"…exceedingly UN-SAFE!" Max finished stumbling to balance himself, feathers and mattress stuffing flying off his suit as a result of the gust of wind in the wake of the vehicles passage.

"Max wait! Listen!" 99 exclaimed to which Max did.

Engines were revving up or cutting out in the carpark but one of them was distinctive enough to stand out among all the others.

"Yes Ninety-Nine!" Max declared. "That's a Jaguar! Where…it's coming from over there by the south exit!"

They both ran in the direction with Max holding onto 99's gloved hand. As they closed in on the entrance, they saw to their right about 4 rows of cars away, a black vehicle backing out of its lot, its driver gunning the engine loudly. As it cleared it's lot, they recognized it as a Jaguar Mark X.

"It has to be him!" Max declared. "Let's get to the entrance and cut him off!"

Němec spund the steering wheel swerving the MARK X to the left to point it's nose at the entrance. The tires of the car screamed as the vehicle moved, smoke rising from all 4 wheel housings. As the exit came into view, the KAOS agent slammed the gearshift out from reverse and into 3rd gear before flooring the accelerator.

The Jaguar launched forward with a burst of power, hurtling towards the exit, its 4235 cc XK I6 engine droning smoothly. As the exit grew larger and larger in the windshield of the vehicle, the KAOS agent's eyes behind his sunglasses narrowed as the big-eared CONTROL agent in the mattress stuffing covered dim gray suit suddenly ran out from between a row of lots to the left and stopped right in front of the exit. Němec's lips pulled back into a devilish grin as he slammed the gearshift again.

The outsoles of Max's dress shoes skidded to a stop, his knees bent, arms flailing to hold his position right in front of the carpark exit as the black Mark X charged smoothly down at him. Whipping his 5 inch barreled, lugless Smith & Wesson Colt Police Official from it's shoulder holster, 86 levelled it and snapped off two quick shots.

Němec growled, jerking his head as the .38 special shells slammed against the MARK X's windshield, each spreading out a spider-web of cracks.

The Colt Police Official's 5 inch barrel flicked with the recoil of the third shot and the largest of the Mark X's quad headlamp on its right side rounded front fender exploded into dozens of glass shards which rained backwards over it's gleaming black fender and hood with the speeding passage of the vehicle. Němec cursed as Max aimed and squeezed the trigger twice even as the roaring Jaguar eradicated the final 30 meters between it and the CONTROL agent. The two .38 special projectiles drilled through the vaned grill in the Mark X's slightly forward-leaning nose producing a muffled explosion from something under it and steam began hissing outwards from the edges of the hood.

Max barely had time to dive out of the way and he could feel the all too close whipping of hot air against his legs as the Jaguar just missed him on it's way out the exit. The moment it reached the road, the Mark X swerved sharply causing several incoming cars to protest with their horns and tires to screech as they attempted to avoid a collision. Dust and smoke rising from it's tires and steam still oozing out from under it's hood, the Mark X sped down the road, it's engine roaring defiantly, interspersed with miniscule sputters.

As Max got to his feet, the Jaguar disappeared round a corner leaving a number of vehicles stalled. Sharp clacks of heels sounded behind him as 99 caught up to him.

"Max! Are you alright?!"

"Only if we don't have to report this to the Chief!" Max declared tossing a hand in the direction of the escaped vehicle. "Němec's our only lead! Gone! Along with ANY hope I have of getting a RAISE this month!"

"Max, we might be able to get some leads from…" 99 was interrupted by the ringing again from her white purse under her left arm.

Pulling her compact from it again, she opened it up and extended the antenna.

"This is Agent Ninety-Nine. Come in."

Back inside the suite, Wilkins spoke into the room phone, looking at an 8 inch object composed of a plastic casing and metal cap in his hand.

"Wilkins here. Did you get him?"

"Afraid not Wilkins." 99 reported. "Would you know of any way we can track him down through the hotel?"

"Not the hotel but I might have something here." Wilkins offered looking at the object he held. "Němec dropped something when he was pulling that grenade out from his jacket."

"The address of his hideout?" Max asked eagerly leaning towards the compact-phone in 99's gloved hand whilst he pressed the ejector rod to empty the spent cartridges from the cylinder of the Colt Police Official into the palm of his hand.

"No, it's a lighter."

"With the address of his hideout on it?" Max continued as he dropped and thumbed new .38 special cartridges into the chambers of the revolver's cylinder, the former causing 99 to narrow her eyes at him.

"The label on the lighter—" Wilkins noted turning the lighter over and peering at it, his smile lines deepening even more as he read the print. "—it says Harvey's Gas Station, Garage—"

"—And Secret KAOS-Robbery-Unit-Hideout?" Max tried again as he reloaded the 4th chamber of his revolver.

"—at Fourth and Vermont." Wilkins finished.

"Oh." Max pouted slightly as he locked home the reloaded cylinder and holstered the 5 inch barreled revolver. "Would'ev been better if it said Secret KAOS-Robbery-Unit-Hide…"

"Wait a second!" 99 exclaimed shaking her gloved fist before her big eyes widened, throwing a soft blue light from her irises. "Němec's disguise kit! These kits usually comes with a supply of toner to help remove the adhesives. He must have run out, because the toner Wilkins and I found in his kit wasn't KAOS issue. It had the same label the lighter had! He must have just purchased it from the gas station as well instead of bothering with requisitioning more from KAOS! He must go to this gas station often."

"Makes sense." Wilkins agreed "Němec's been living with Pernilla here for months in dis…."

Wilkins was interrupted by an ear piercing, gut wrenching screech blasting out from the bedroom door making him turn in the direction. It took him a moment, to realize an eagle had not accidentally flown into the suite nor was it a mountain lion committing some form of self-flagellation routine but actually Pernilla screaming.

"MY EMILIO PUCCI DRESS! AND…NOOOOO….NOT MY GERNREICH MONOKINIIIIIIS!"

Wilkins sighed, turning his attention back to the phone.

"It makes sense. Fourth and Vermont is less than ten minutes from here. It'd be pretty convenient."

"But how does that help us?" Max grimaced "We need da know where the robbery unit's HIDEOUT is since he's probably heading there right now."

"Wait." 99 thought gloved knuckle pressed to her delicate chin. "I don't think he'd risk staying someplace so close to his hideout. And his car is damaged. Max, you shot out his headlight. He wouldn't get far without a policeman pulling him over. He wouldn't risk the delay!"

Max shook a finger as he began to follow 99's train of thought while his other hand rested on his hip.

"You're right Ninety-Nine! Did you see the steam coming out from under the hood as he drove off? I'm pretty sure my last shot might have damaged his radiator. He won't get far if he doesn't at least get it patched!"

"You two go check it out." Wilkins agreed. "By the way, I spoke to…"

"MY JEAN MUIR EVENING GOWNS!" was Pernilla's next proclamation from the bedroom cutting Wilkins off making him roll his eyes in exasperation as she continued "OOOOH WHAT CRUEL ACT OF FATE IS THIIIIIS?!"

"…to the Chief." Wilkins continued "I'll update him on where you're headed. The Chief now wants you to capture Němec as he's on to us so he won't head for the gang's hideout. Interrogating him is our only chance to find out their plans."

"Understood Wilkins." 99 acknowledged. "We'll keep the Chief appraised as we go. Ninety-Nine out."

"Good luck." Wilkins said and hung up the phone but turned again as Pernilla hollered from her room.

"FORGET THE PICTURE! I'm going to FRY his isterband MYSELF!"

Wilkins groaned, only partially due to his throbbing jaw and neck as he shook his head.

"I'm DEFINITELY not making employee-of-the-month."

"We're just a few minutes away Ninety-Nine!" Max assured shifting gears swiftly

In the passenger seat, 99 held onto her yellow beret which flapped wildly as the Sunbeam tiger sped along the road passing vehicle after vehicle while her other white gloved hand braced against the dashboard.

"Taking the next right!" Max announced.

No sooner had he said that, 86 shifted gears and stomped on the accelerator making the Sunbeam Tiger surge forward with a burst of power just before yanking the steering wheel to the right. 99 grabbed hold of the car door handle as she was hurled to the left, seat belt cutting into her cleavage as the Sunbeam Tiger turned in a red flash as it negotiated the turn.

Without slackening in velocity, Max angled past a delivery truck and over took several cars.

"I hope we find him Ninety-Nine!" Max scowled as he swerved to the right to bypass a Le Sabre. "The Chief must be FUMING back in the office! He really wanted Němec to lead us to the gang!"

"Don't' worry Max! You'll figure out a way. I know you will!" 99 reassured him. "It's lucky you called my compact phone when you did. Němec was about to shoot both Wilkins and me. But why were you and Pernilla coming up to the room? Weren't you stalling her in the lobby?"

"I was!" Max exclaimed yanking the steering wheel to the left to avoid a Citroen. "I told her I was a reporter for the New York Times there da interview her! She asked me up to her room for some drinks! So I called to warn you that we were on our way!"

"So you AGREED to drink with her in her ROOM?!" 99 exclaimed her blue eyes wide.

"Well I HAD to Ninety-Nine!" Max declared. "No reporter in his right mind would turn down a drink from a tall, long-legged, voluptuous, luscious-lipped, supermodel goddess like Pernilla! It's a dirty job but we reporters will do whatever it TAKES to get a story!"

"You're NOT a reporter Max!" 99 exclaimed.

"Well if I ever become one," Max replied, his lips pouting as he nodded with certainty. "I'll be well prepared for the sacrifices that comes with interviewing tall, long-legged, voluptuous, luscious-lipped, supermodel goddesses! I'll tell you Ninety-Nine—" Max closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head with gravely. "—it is a GREAT sacrifice!" Which of course makes 99 grimace as she cast him a sideways look that could burn holes into his big ear.

The Sunbeam Tiger finally eased to a smooth stop at a junction, outside a row of delicatessens and jewelry shops.

"There's Harvey's gas station down to the right Ninety-Nine. My bino-specs are in the glove compartment."

99 put on the bino-specs and adjusted the eye pieces. As the facility came into focus, it appeared to be a standard filling station found anywhere in the United States. This one had the typical colorful high square roof standing on several thick pillars over the forecourt where the pump machines were. Large blue and green neon letters were mounted on the forecourt roof spelling out 'HARVEY'S GAS STATION & GARAGE' though not turned on now in the day. The gas station's one story rectangular main building appeared comprised of two parts; the point of sale area which was also a convenience store while the other half of the building was the small garage or motor vehicle workshop.

"Well?" Max asked as 99 removed the bino-specs.

"I don't see Němec anywhere and there aren't any customers inside the convenience store." 99 confirmed. "But the garage half of the building is further from us so I can't see into the garage from this angle."

"Okay. We'll have to go in. I'll let the Chief know." Max said lifting his right foot and removing his shoe.

Twisting the heel to unlock it, he removes the outsole, flips up the folding mouth piece and quickly uses the small rotary dial inside the mouth piece housing. As 99 keeps watch at the gas station in the distance, Max puts the circular receiver where the heel had been to his ear.

"This is Agent Eight-Six, calling CONTROL." Max stated. "Eighty-Six calling CONTROL. Come in CONTROL."

In his office, the Chief held the handset of his phone tightly to his ear as he fought to control his voice.

"Yes Max! What's the situation?"

"Chief, we're now at Harvey's gas station at Fourth and Vermont." Max reported looking down the road. "We can't tell if Němec is in there from where we are. We'll have da go in and take a look."

"Alright Max. Don't make a scene if he's not there." the Chief nodded as he held the receiver and clenches a fist for emphasis. "But if he is, DON'T let him get away! We need him alive for interrogation. He's our only lead to the robbery unit!"

"Right Chief." Max nodded. "We'll be in touch on how it turns out."

With that, he flips shut the mouth piece and replaces the sole of the shoe informing 99.

"Here's what we'll do Ninety-Nine. We'll drive up casually, ask them to fill up the gas and we'll check out both the store and the garage."

"Right Max."

The Sunbeam Tiger eased forward from the junction onto the road and turned to the right, heading towards the gas station. As the approached the forecourt, they could see clearly through the glass panel wall of the convenience store/point of sales half of the main building and noting it was empty except for a single staff seated behind the service counter near the door. It was a heavy set man in blue denim overalls over a lighter blue uniform like shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his big upper arms. His hair was red and shaggy and he was seated in a swivel chair with his back to the door watching a small television on the top of the counter at the side.

Upon hearing the Sunbeam's engine, the man turned in his chair revealing a face with a full grown but well-trimmed beard and a thick cigar clenched between his teeth. He however appeared to have little interest in potential customers unless they walked into the convenience store proper and turned right back to the television.

As Max eased the Sunbeam to a stop next to one of the pump stations, a gas jockey with his long dark brown hair in a curtain, wearing a greasy blue coverall, trotted over from the entrance of the garage where he had been talking to a similarly dressed man relaxing in a chair.

"Afternoon to ya! Fill her up?" the gas jockey greeted when he reached them, immediately pulling a big spray bottle from one of his oversized coverall pockets along with a squeegee.

"Thanks—Jeremy!" Max returned reading the name tag on the gas jockey's coverall and noting that he was in his early twenties with a high forehead and well defined chin. "Plus I need the battery looked at."

"You can talk to Wyatt, our mechanic while I take care of the gas." Jeremy titled his head over his shoulder towards the garage entrance as he sprayed the cleaning solution on the Sunbeam's windscreen and applied the squeegee. "But you'll have da wait. Some guy in there with his Jag's cracked radiator."

"Oh, that's no problem." Max shrugged opening the car door. "C'mon honey."

Before 99 could get out, Jeremy hurried over to her side of the door and smiling brightly, opened the door for her with a courteous nod and smile which did not hide the excited gleam in his eye as he studied her.

"Ma'am." Jeremy nodded as 99 stepped

"Thank you Jeremy." 99 smiled graciously as she put her boots to the ground and stood up, reaching her left arm through her handbag's handles put them on her left shoulder, tucking the bag under her arm.

While Jeremy continued cleaning their windshield, Max and 99 trotted towards the garage of the gas station.

"Ok Ninety-Nine." Max whispered as they approached the large drive-in entrance of the garage. "You stay behind me and I'll take care of Němec. You just keep the mechanics calm so no one panics."

"Right Max." 99 nodded keeping up a casual smile.

Snoring could be heard as they approached the mechanic seated to whom the gas jockey had been speaking to earlier, in the wooden arm chair to the left of the garage entrance. He was now slouched in his seat, legs stretched out and crossed over each other, cap pulled down over his eyes and thick grease covered veiny arms crossed over his growing paunch. His ragged oil stained name tag read "BROCK". His mouth was opened, producing the buzz saw like snore as his belly rose and fell.

Leaving the snoozing Brock behind them, Max and 99 entered the garage which stretched away from them for about 50 feet with a width of about slightly half of that. At the opposite end was a similar sized entrance in the northern wall, allowing vehicles to simply drive through. Overall, it was not as shoddy as some auto-mechanic workshops Max had seen, with tools expectedly found littering the blackened floor along with puddles of grease and multicolored engine oil.

The western wall had a long table lining it covered with various engine parts and more tools. Where the table ended, halfway down the length of the wall, was a door which must lead to the convenience store half of the main building. A wheeled air compressor was parked at the eastern wall along with some air tanks for inflating of tires along with a few opened drums filled with waste oil.

But they had little time to contemplate the aesthetics embraced by the hard working members of the auto industry as they immediately saw the black Jaguar Mark X parked inside, it's rear bumper facing them, 20 feet or so inside the southern entrance. The hood was opened and there standing next to the front right wheel, his back to them, was the black suited Němec, with a matching fedora on, his hands on his hips in a posture of consternation and annoyance.

"Well, there's your problem right there." Came a lazy voice.

Quietly, Max proceeded led the way towards the Jaguar as 99 slipped behind him, her right gloved hand sliding into her handbag under her left armpit.

"Pal, you gat a serious hole in your radiator right here." Continued the lazy voice. "I'm surprised you got five miles without it blowing apart!"

As Max walked stealthily down the right side of the Jaguar with 99 at his back, closing in on the back of the unsuspecting KAOS agent, the speaker appeared, straightening up from where he had been bent under the hood; a tall man at 6ft or so, stout mid-section pushing against his baggy, oil stained coveralls and the heavy tool belt round his wide waist, with the ragged name tag on his chest reading "WYATT".

As Max closed in on Němec's back, Wyatt pushed his crumpled uniform cap back from his lined forehead and squinted gray eyes at his customer.

"I'm afraid it's two weeks for a replacement. It would'ev been cheaper da pay off your bookie so he didn't' shoot it into a block of Swiss cheese!" The auto-mechanic pronounced causing the KAOS agent to bow his head forward and grunt in frustration. "If you're in a hurry, the best I can do is mix up a sealant. But that'll hold for barely a few hours."

"That WON'T be necessary Wyatt!" Max announced stopping a few steps behind Němec and drawing his Smith & Wesson Colt Police Official. "Alright Němec hands up!"

The KAOS agent stiffened at Max's voice immediately and Wyatt's jaw dropped, eyes popping at the sight of Max's revolver.

"Don't worry Wyatt!" Max declared his other hand lifting up with a red leather bill fold as Němec slowly raised his hands. "We're government agents and we're placing this man under arrest."

Wyatt leaned forward squinting at the bill fold.

"The Washington LIBRARY?! What, he borrowed a hundred books and didn't return them or something?" The auto-mechanic puzzled.

Max frowned and pulled his bill fold back to look at it and grimaced at his library card. He flipped through the pages in it and held it out again.

"Alright Němec, you're coming with us."

"Sorry pal that discount card is only good for _Ollie and Pa's Gas Station_ at the West side on D Street." Wyatt continued squinting, gesturing at the billfold, his other thumb hooked in his tool belt.

Max pulled the bill fold back again to stare and it and rolled his eyes as he flipped through the display pockets and again thrusted up the billfold.

Max's eyes popped again as brought the billfold back again for another stare as again thumbed through the various pockets in it while holding his at the KAOS agent's back before showing it to the auto-mechanic again.

"We don't validate your parking here." Was Wyatt's next response causing Max to bring the billfold back and continued flipping through it again with his thumb before displaying it again.

"We do carry that brand of crackers but your coupons expired."

Max rolled his eyes and brought the billfold back for another furious round of flipping before he held it out again.

"Who's the old lady?"

Max's eyes popped as he yanked back his arm and stared at the picture he was actually showing Wyatt.

"Sorry that's my Aunt Rose." Max said sheepishly as he started flipping again. "I have it…uuuhh….it's here somewhere….uuuhhh…Ninety-Nine! Could you gimme a hand..."

"Here! Here!" 99 declared holding up her billfold with her federal identification over Max's shoulder.

As Wyatt mouthed 'oh' as he finally saw the proper credentials 99 held up, Max flicked the 5 inch barrel of his Colt Police Official.

"Alright Němec! Turn around slowly. We're gonna we're have a little chat back at headquarters. Let' go."

The KAOS agent sighed and turned with his hands up as 99 looked down, pushing her billfold back into her handbag. She happened to glance up and froze, her gloved hand still inside her purse, her eyes wide with shock as Němec faced them.

As 99 gasped, Max frowned at the flat-nosed, pork marked, blunt chinned visage of the man before him.

"Oh, sorry! Our mistake." Max shrugged. "We were looking for ANOTHER international agent of evil."

Flat-nose now grinned taking a step to this left to reveal Wyatt now also smirking, his right arm levelled at them over the 4235 cc XK I6 engine of the Jaguar. Steam rising from the damaged radiator curled around his out stretched arm at the end of which was a Walter P38 in his greasy hand.

At that moment, a sharp rattling sounded behind them made 99 turn her head, right gloved hand still frozen inside her purse, to see a flash of grease stained blue coverall flashing out from underneath the Mark X just in-front of the rear right wheel. It took her a moment to realize it was another auto-mechanic, this one lying on a creeper. The man's towheaded hair was slit back though with hair gel or the oil from the garage, 99 could not tell. His pale green eyes glittered with focus above his narrow face and hooked nose as he sat up on the creeper, his right arm levelled up at her with a Zastava M57 pistol, his dirty coveralls crumpling with his movement, almost obscuring the name tag bearing the name "GRANT".

99 whipped her head back to the front, gasping.

"Max! It's a trap!"

Flat-nose's right hand was now coming out of his sports-jacket with a 4 inch barrelled 357. Magnum Colt Python in a Royal Blue finish. As he held the weapon's full lug, ventilated rib barrel at waist level, Max grimaced.

"Either that or this gas station has the BEST customer loyalty programme EVER!"

TO BE CONTINUED

Written by

 **Resurgent** **-class**

 **Thank you for getting to the end of Part 1! I do appreciate it! I hope you'll continue with Part 2 and hopefully, future fan-fics if any, will be a LOT shorter!**

 **For those interested and still awake at this point, here's some Trivia from Part 1! Feel free to comment in your reviews!**

The Hotel Cramley, where the diamond fair and robbery took place in the opening scene, is featured in the original series in Season 1, Episode 2, Diplomat's Daughter.

The manner in which the Hotel Cramely is robbed with advance teams securing key points in preparation for the main force, is inspired partly by the first robbery of the jewellery store in the hilarious action-comedy, Beverly Hills Cop II (just my personal opinion, the best of the trilogy)

After the Hotel Cramley robbery, SS-19 orders Gerd and Kerstin to hand the sorted diamonds over to Sommers and Winters of the League of Bald-Headed Men, presumably to be smuggled behind the Iron Curtain. Sommers and Winters, along with the league is featured in the original series in Season 4, Episode 5, Diamonds Are a Spy's Best Friend, where they attempt to steal and smuggle the Morris Diamond which Max inadvertently gets his hands on as an engagement ring for 99.

The events of this fan-fic occurs after Season 1, Episode 8, The Day Smart Turned Chicken and before Season 1, Episode 9, Satan Place. In greeting Max and 99 at the scene of the armoured car robbery, the Chief congratulates Max on his great testimony at the KAOS trial. This refers to the trial Max was preparing to testify for in The Day Smart Turned Chicken.

At the scene of the armored car robberies, the Chief says he has a robbery case for Max to which 86 promptly asks "Who do you want me da rob?" This is a reference to the similar joke in Season 1, Episode 2, Diplomat's Daughter, in which the Chief tells Max he has a kidnapping case for him and Max of course asks, "Who do you want me to kidnap?" This Fan-Fic takes place about 6 episodes after that which explains why the Chief is frustrated that Max always seems to think he is being asked to commit a felony.

Max at the scene of the armoured car robberies is dubious of how the Cramley managed to organize a diamond trade fair after what happened to their guests. Max is referring to the multiple kidnappings of young blonde women from the hotel Cramley as the Claw had trouble recognizing the real Princess Ingrid in Season 1, Episode 2, Diplomat's Daughter.

Professor Windish at at the scene of the armoured car robberies: "It's KAOS' new Variable High-Intensity Beam Projector. We know they perfected it less than four months ago. Basically, a battlefield version of our more subtle pocket disintegrator and laser pen." The Pocket Disintegrator Pen is featured in Season 1, Episode 7, KAOS in CONTROL in which Max uses it to cut through the conference room wall, not knowing it is the Chief's office on the other side while the similar Laser Pen is seen in the Season 3 episode, Viva Smart where Max uses it to cut through the wall of the prison cell they were in, only emerge in the yard where General Diablo Pajarito's firing squad awaited them.

Max at the scene of the armoured car robberies inquired if the armoured cars were also delivering cash to Sherman's Bank at third street. This is the bank featured in Season 3, Episode 18, Don't Look Back, which Max was accused of robbing after he failed to secure a loan there.

During the briefing scene in the Chief's office, the fire extinguisher slide projector and the projector screen on the reverse side of the picture are both featured in Season 1, Episode 11, Too Many Chiefs.

In the Chief's Office, the Chief states that KAOS is using the Super Sleep tranquilizer gas to carry out the robberies. This is not an invention seen in the original series but a creation for my series of fan-fics. It is mentioned in my first fan-fic RADIO KAOS, as one of the military secrets transmitted out of the country by KAOS' secret shortwave radio station.

In the Chief's office, the Chief mentions Super Sleep's Phase 2 involves modifying the gas to enhance it's effectiveness in non-enclosed areas and delivery system using missiles or bombs. This fan-fic conceptualizes that Super Sleep's phase 2 will eventually be the tranquilizing agent used in the tranquilizer bomb known as the TK-800 which is the formula The Claw was smuggling through his chain of Chinese laundry shops in Season 1, Episode 25, The Amazing Harry Hoo.

During the briefing scene in the Chief's office, Max makes references to the Guild of Surviving CONTROL Agents and CONTROL requiring their agents to stow away instead of flying home on tourist class if they are kidnapped by enemy agents and taken to a foreign country. This is all featured in Season 2, Episode 2, Strike While the Agent is Hot.

In the briefing scene, Caronia is mentioned including their supply of a mineral for the United State's X2 program as well as King Charles VIII, Prince Charles and Prince Basil which are all featured in Season 3, Episode 14, The King Lives?, in which Prince Basil as Prime Minister tries to assassinate Prince Charles before his coronation so as to become King himself and turn the mineral over to presumably Iron Curtain countries. This piece of fan-fic story conceptualizes how Prince Basil ascends to the role of Prime Minister preceding the events of _The King Lives?_

During the briefing with the fire extinguisher slide projector in the Chief's office, many KAOS agents and CONTROL agents from the original series are mentioned :

CONTROL Agents

Agent 17 who first spots SS-19 with Christopher in Herăstrău Park in Bucharest. This is the 17 in Season 2, Episode 7, The Decoy where the Chief could not bear to let him be the decoy as he was married with 2 children

Agent 32 who picks up SS-19's trail in Chişinău. Agent 32 is the agent guarding the ill-fated Professor Longnecker before Max relieves him in Season 3, Episode 13, The Mysterious Dr. T

Agent 35 who goes to Boscolo Budapest Hotel to relieve 30 only to find him missing. 35 is featured in Season 2, Episode 2, Strike While the Agent is Hot, where he attends the secret strike meeting for the Guild of Surviving CONTROL Agents chaired by Max. 35 is 5 minutes late for the meeting and runs in but appears to be invisible.

Agent 77 who photographs Gerd Vollmar and Otto Cronin in Le Mans while undercover as a restaurant Maitre'D. 77 is the ill-fated agent in Season Two, Episode 22, Smart Fit the Battle of Jericho, who while undercover as a building inspector, is compromised and killed by KAOS agent Carlos.

Agent 63, Joe Froebus, Karlskrona mission. Joe Froebus is seen in Season 2, Episode 17, Someone Down Here Hates Me, with a new face following plastic surgery after a train wreck

Agent 88, Karlskrona mission. Mentioned only in Season 4, Episode 23, Leadside, staking out Highway 94 in dragnet to capture the eponymous criminal genius.

Agent 85, Karlsrona mission. Another ill-fated agent, featured in Season 1, Episode 13, Aboard the Orient Express. Max foreshadows his death by saying 85 is too tough to be killed by bullets and knives, which comes true as 85 is killed about 4 episodes after this fan-fic by poisoned gas in Season 1, Episode 13, Aboard the Orient Express.

KAOS Agents

Christopher, with SS-19 in Herăstrău Park in Bucharest. Christopher is featured in Season 2, Episode 4, The Only Way to Die, as one of The Blaster's henchman

Eric Kruger, with SS-19 in Ştefan cel Mare Central Park in Moldova. Eric Kruger is featured in Season 2, Episode 18, Cutback at CONTROL, where Max kills him in a shootout outside a movie theatre

Schnell, disguised as a priest and meets SS-19 in the Basilica of the Virgin Mary in Brezje, Slovenia. Schnell is seen in Season 2, Episode 23, Where-What-How-Who Am I?, where he is a KAOS group leader planning to kill U.S space scientists at Jet Space Labs with a bomb in a snack truck

Natz, who meets SS-19 at the Hungarian State Opera House. Natz is featured in Season 1, Episode 19, Back to the Old Drawing Board, a KAOS agent that Max sent to prison for 10 years and commissions Dr. Ratton to capture Dr. Shotwire suing Hymie.

Otto Cronin seen with Gerd Vollmar in the restaurant in Le Mans. Otto Cronin is seen in Season 5, Episode 10, The Apes of Rath, paying Dr. Matthew Rath to kill CONTROL agents with his trained, genetically altered ape, Chucko.

Kosovich in the mission with Gerd in Karlskrona. Kosovich features in Season 2, Episode 13, Perils in a Pet Shop, and Max confronts him in a comical slow-motion fist fight in the end due to both being tranquilized.

Belasco, leading the Karlskrona mission. Belasco is the KAOS agent in charge of brainwashing the captive Professor Phineas Pheasant in Season 5, Episode 1, Pheasant Under Glass.

Melnik, the Smiling Killer in Norwich with Kerstin. Melnik is the chief villain in Season 2, Episode 13, Perils in a Pet Shop, in which the KAOS front he runs "Kilmen's Pet Shop" is basically his name Melnik with the alphabets rearranged and this fan-fic follows this M.O with "Elmkin's Antiques".

Commander Hathaway of British CONTROL mentioned in the Norwich operation. The Commander is featured in Season 3, Episode 10, That Old Gang of Mine, where he is revealed to be a KAOS double agent and the enigmatic Mr X, master of the Scorpion Gang. In this fan-fic, the Norwich mission is believed compromised by a mole in British CONTROL and it is implied that it was Hathaway who tipped off Melnik and Kerstin.

The Chief in the briefing worries about impending budget cuts against CONTROL which is finally seen to happen for the first time in Season 2, Episode 18, Cutback at CONTROL.

The way the Marquise makes her appearance, depicting her luxurious mansion followed by a scene of her sparring in karategi with a few opponents to the backdrop of classical music as well as some of the moves (sorry, pardon my atrocious descriptions) is inspired by the scene from The Karate Kid Part III where Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) makes his entrance.

The Marquise's physical features are designed based on the sublime actress of the late 60s and early 80s, Ira von Fürstenberg, as a reference model (apologies if my descriptions do no justice). Coincidentally, according to IMDB, Ms Fürstenberg is also of royal blood.

In her secret underground laboratory, the Marquise refers to a Brainwashing Pill that causes a person to carry out a particular action in response to a trigger word. This drug is featured in Season 1, Episode 22, Smart the Assassin, a development by KAOS agent Cedric Devonshire who gives it to Max so he would shoot the Chief. But when Devonshire shouts the trigger word "Checkmate" instead, Max ends up shooting him, demonstrating the flaw the Marquise describes.

The Marquise mentions the Chameleon who is featured as the main undefeated villain in Season 4, Episode 8, The Return of the Ancient Mariner.

The Büchner funnel and Florence flask phone the Oberführer uses is similar to the Test Tube Phone Max and the Chief uses in Season 1, Episode 10, Our Man in Leotards, with von Graf making the same mistake as Max does.

When von Graf speaks to Mr Big on the Büchner funnel and Florence flask phone, he states he can hear an aria from The Magic Flute in the background implying that this Mr Big is Badeff and he is at Badeff Concert Hall.

The conference room that Max and 99 examines the case files in is the same conference/situation room, from Season 1, Episode 6, Washington 4, Indians 3, where Max and the Chief consults with the Chief of Staffs of the Army, Air Force and Navy.

Hampton's Fine Food which Max suggests for lunch as it validates parking and has good bacon and eggs, is featured in Season 2, Episode 4, The Only Way to Die. And while bacon and eggs is indeed unusual for lunch (Just me. Insights anyone?), that is exactly what Max ordered while keeping surveillance on Stromberg and Christopher in The Only Way to Die as Max states he was waiting for his bacon and eggs and he needed to have his "lunch" or he cannot validate his parking. The eatery is seen again in Season 2, Episode 15, Kiss of Death and Season 2, Episode 17, Someone Down Here Hates Me.

The Master Identification File Max and 99 uses is first seen in Season 2, Episode 13, Perils in a Pet Shop and I believe later again in Season 3, Episode 13, The Mysterious Dr. T. Just like in Perils in a Pet Shop, Max causes a malfunction in the machine in this fan-fic fully justifying the Chief, and Professors Windish and Carlson's fears.

Translation of Spanish conversations in Brenda J Coving's Café scene (apologies, all courtesy of Google Translate. Those of you who speak Spanish please point out my mistakes. Thanks!)

Waitress to Brenda: " _Brenda, l_ _as placas se están acabando. Julio necesita ayuda_."

"Brenda, the plates are running out. Julio needs help."

Brenda: " _Sí._ _Ve y ayuda_."

"Yes. Go and help."

Raoul: " _Qué_?"

"What?"

Brenda: " _Los pasteles!_ _Ellos stán listos_!"

"The pies! They are ready!" (I cannot seem to get the right word for pies!)

Raoul: " _No hay problema jefe_!"

"No problem boss!"

The Chief makes reference to locating the venue of the KAOS Annual Dance, an event mentioned in one of the great episodes which features Siegfried, Season 2, Episode 9, Rub-A-Dub-Dub... Three Spies in a Sub.

The Chief and Max mentions the Alledon Arms Hotel which is featured in Season 3, Episode 5, Maxwell Smart, Private Eye. Just like in the episode, in this fan-fic, Max refers to it as a hotel in dismal condition and the Chief mentions their highly sought commercial rate which CONTROL finally attains in Maxwell Smart, Private Eye.

CONTROL agent Wilkins, undercover at the Peer Gynt as a bell hop is featured in Season 4, Episodes 25 & 26, The Not-So-Great-Escape, Parts I & II. He is one of the CONTROL agents held prisoner in Camp Gitchie Goomee Noonee Wa-Wa. In the episodes, Max refers to him as Wilkinson while the Chief calls him Wilkins. Putting aside mistakes on the part of the actors, one plausible in-universe explanation offered by Get Smart Wiki, is that Max with his habit of verbal gaffs and confusion over names, addresses him erroneously while the Chief is correct in calling him Wilkins.

The Hotel Peer Gynt hotel featured prominently in Season 2, Episodes 28 A Man Called Smart, Part I where Max makes contact with informer Russell Bediyoskin. My description despite reference to the DVD is sadly lacking.

While speaking covertly with Wilkins in the Peer Gynt's lobby, Max inadvertently shows Wilkins a picture of Phyllis Diller instead of Němec. An inside joke directed at Season 5, Episode 1, Pheasant Under Glass, in which Phyllis Diller indeed makes a cameo appearance as Maxwell Smart while he is trying out different plastic surgery disguises.

When confronted by Němec in Pernilla Johansson's room, Wilkins uses a cover name of "Miss Westbrook" for 99. This is based on the cover name "Melissa Westbrook" which 99 uses about 9 episodes after this fan-fic in Season 1, Episode 17, Kisses for KAOS.

Němec mentions the KAOS benefit of 25% Suffering Bonus if their wounds are not instantly fatal. This is featured in Season 2, Episode 2, Strike While the Agent is Hot, by the KAOS agent shot by his own revolver in the struggle with Max in the latter's apartment.

Wyatt, the KAOS agent at Harvey's Gas Station and Garage mentions Ollie and Pa's Gas Station at the West side on D Street. This address is featured in Season 3, Episode 11, The Mild Ones, and it is also where the Purple Knights hang-out Dee Dee's Diner is located.

Translation of Czech in Němec's conversations (again, apologies, resources limited to Google Translate. Czech speakers, please point out my mistakes. Thanks very much!)

Němec to 99 and Wilkins: "I just want to zee you two squvirm like _ **červ**_ before I revealed zhat zher game is UP!"

: worm

Němec to 99 and Wilkins: "You! Agent Ninety-Nine! Your purse! Toss it on…Your GUN! And no _**triky**_!"

: tricks

Němec to 99 and Wilkins: " _ **Děkuji! Děkuji!**_ A now! Time to say— _ **rozloučení**_!"

: Thank you! Farewell!

Němec to 99 and Wilkins: " _ **Hloupý**_ CONTROL AGENTS!"

: Stupid

Němec to Pernilla: "—my _**sladký dort**_ _ **,**_ as fun as it haz been—I cannot tolerate…"

: sweet cake


End file.
